
ILMAN'S 



rlisTORiCAL Readers 



No. 2. 



THE- COLONIZATION • OP 
AMERICA 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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Shelf..... 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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OILMAN'S HISTORICAL READERS. — No. II. 



THE 



COLONIZATION of AMERICA 



A BOOK FOR AMERICAN BOYS AND GIRLS 



BY 



ARTHUR OILMAN, M. A.., 

AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, FIRST STEPS IN 

ENGLISH LITERATURE, FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL HISTORY, 

TALES OF THE PATHFINDERS, THE STORY OF 

THE SARACENS, ETC. 



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d^' 



<0^^^i!! ^y^i 



- Jul 23 1 88 7 



CHICAGO 

The Interstate Publishing Company 
Boston : 30 Franklin Street 



OTHER WORKS BY ARTHUR OILMAN. 



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Intro- 



COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY 

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PRESS OF HENRY H. CLARK & CO., BOSTO^ 



PREFACE. 




HIS volume, like The Discovery and Exploration 
OF America, of which it is a continuation, is a 
study of the best authorities. It is intended to 
present to young readers the salient points in the story 
of the Colonization of the United States. It carries the 
narrative down to the time when the relations between 
the Americans and the mother-country were becoming 
"strained," and independence, though they little thought 
it, was not far off. 

The same valued works that were used in preparing 
the former volume have served for this one ; but in addi- 
tion to those mentioned there, the History of Mr. George 
Bancroft has been constantly consulted, as well as more 
minute records of particular states, towns, and regions. 
Mr. Parkman's works have been of great service ; and many 
books and papers issued by the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, the American Historical Association, and other 
societies of similar aim, have been used. 

The writer is also under obligations to scholars who 
have made special studies of particular portions of the story, 
and have with generosity placed their time, their books, 



IV PREFACE. 

and their rich stores of knowledge at his disposal. The 
" History of New England," by Mr. Palfrey, has been a 
constant resort for all matters connected with that region. 
The author cannot sufficiently emphasize the desirability 
of training the young reader in the use of books of 
reference in connection with historical study. It is in- 
tended that the Explanations in the Index at the close 
of this volume shall lead to some familiarity with the 
l^rocess of investigation. The young reader who is 
awake to his study is not willing to be confined to words 
and expressions with which he is familiar, but wishes 
to go from one step to another. If he is taught to look 
up the meaning of the words he does not know, in the 
Dictionary or elsewhere, he will become more and more 
interested in his work, and at the same time his mind will 
be strengthened. It is hoped that teachers will encourage 
in their pupils the habit of investigating authorities and 
works of reference, so far as possible. 

CAMBRmcE, May, 1887. 



^^ 



)^^/<*>x».^ 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
Chapter 

I. New France ^ 

II. A New Religious Influence 12 

III. The Pilgrims Find Liberty ^7 

IV. The English Puritans make a Move . . 22 

V. An Important Meeting in Cambridge, England . 26 

VI. The great New England Emigration . . 29 

VII. The Dutcli Claim the Hudson River ... 32 

VIII. The Dutch do Not Succeed 35 

IX. Other Settlements Dot the Map . . • -39 

X. The Ruin of a Good King's Plan ... 42 

XI. A Reformed Puritan 4o 

XII. The Baltimores Begin a New Sort of Colony . ^51 

XIII. A Friend of Harry Vane 57 

XIV. Beginning to move West from Massachusetts . 61 
XV. Davenport's House of Wisdom . . . • 65 

XVI. A Union for Defense . "9 

XVII. An Aristocratic Colony 73 

XVIII. What the French were Doing 7^ 

XIX. How Some Friends were Treated . . • 81 

V 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



XX. " King " Philip of Mount Hope . . . .84 

XXI. The Peaceful Friends in Pennsylvania . . 87 

XXII. A Long Quarrel across the Ocean . . .93 

XXIII. The Charter of Massachusetts is Taken Away 99 

XXIV. How THE People were Governed . . . .106 
XXV. One of the Royal Governors . . . . 110 

XXVI. Andros another Royal Governor . . . .114 

XXVII. Witches and their Troubles . . . .120 

XXVIII. Shall America be French or English?. . .124 

XXIX. Some Ways of the Colonists . . . .130 

XXX. How the Colonists Lived 138 

XXXI. More about the Ways of the Colonists . . 146 

Explanatory Index 155 




THE 



Colonization of America. 



CHAPTER I. 



NEW FRANCE. 




HILE the English were making vigorous 
movements toward founding plantations in 
America, the French did not forget that the 
name New France, or Acadie, was marked over vast 
regions on their maps of the continent. They re- 
membered, too, that there were no settlements of 
their countrymen there. Now we are to see them 
try to change this state of things. 

There was born in Spain, the year before Colum- 
bus made his great discovery, an enthusiastic and 
chivalric man who was destined to have a great in- 
fluence over the fortunes of Acadie. He became 



8 IGNATIUS LOYOLA. [1534. 

very zealous for the Catholic church as he grew up. 
You will find him mentioned in history as Ignatius 
Loyola, though he is sometimes called St. Ignatius. 

When Ferdinand and Isabella had been long 
dead, this man formed a great scheme for renewing 
his church and converting " infidels," as he called all 
who were not members of it. It was just after 
Queen Elizabeth was born in England. Loyola 
established a society of men called now Jesuits, 
every one of whom was bound to obey his leader 
without asking questions. They were to go where 
he sent them, and to do what he told them to. In 
a few years this society became very strong, and 
you have little idea of the power that its leader had. 
Now we have come to the time when he was to 
use it in America. 

Henry of Navarre, the fourth of his name, was 
king of France. He is called the Great, because 
the people esteem him as the most perfect French- 
man, statesmen, and warrior. He had been a Prot- 
estant, but at the time of which I am speaking had 
become a Catholic, and had married a Catholic wife. 
We can imagine him looking over the map of 
America with the help of his wonderful minister the 



1604.] CHAMPLAIN IN CANADA. 9 

Duke of Sully, and thinking that something ought 
to be done to fill up the great region that Cartier 
had taken possession of in the days of Francis the 
First, more than sixty years before. In consequence 
of some such consultation as this, privileges were 
granted by the king to certain of his subjects, and 
they sent out men and ships to buy furs from the 
natives. 

This was in 1603. In that year Samuel de 
Champlain, who had been put at the head of a 
company, was sent out by one De Chaste to explore 
the country. De Chaste died before much could be 
done, and then similar privileges were given to 
another courtier named De Monts. When Champlain 
returned to France he found that Chaste was dead, 
and the next March he was on his way to Acadie 
again with De Monts. They established the first 
permanent settlement of Frenchmen in America at 
Port Royal, which is now called Annapolis. 

Champlain became the father of colonization in 
Canada. He soon took advantage of the establish- 
ment of the society of Jesuits, and encouraged them 
to go with him, giving them all the opportunities 
they wished to preach to the Indians. This was 



lO QUEBEC FOUNDED. [1608. 

just what the Jesuits wanted, and they entered into 
the movement with the greatest imaginable enthusi- 
asm. No dangers and no expenses were too great 
for them. They went among the Indians as friends ; 
they Hved with them, and in many ways strove to 
win them to the religion they professed. They 
paddled down the rivers in the Indian canoe ; they 
rode over the vast prairies on horseback, or trudged 
through the wintry woods on foot ; they were deter- 
mined to brave every obstacle in carrying the cross 
of Christ all over the region that their king claimed. 

No wonder they had great success. If you 
travel through Canada now, though it has been 
English so long, you will find churches that the 
Jesuits built, and you will hear the French language 
spoken by men, women, and children all around you. 
Does not this show that the French who went there 
first must have been very strong? 

Six times did Champlain sail from France to 
America. He explored much of the New England 
coast ; of course he tried, as every one did, to get 
through to China by going up the St. Lawrence. 
He founded Quebec ; he fought with the Indians ; 
he traded with them ; and he planned a college to 



THE FRENCHMEN IN ACADIE. II 

train the young natives. The Jesuits were famous 
for their colleges. Champlain was devoted to his 
people, and did not much care for his own inter- 
ests. He was followed by many other Frenchmen, 
who labored hard to make Acadie valuable to their 
country. 




CHAPTER II. 



A NEW RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. 




HERE was another religious movement that 
had a great influence upon America. I 
have told you that in the reign of Henry 
the Eighth the English became a Protestant people; 
but there were some among them who did not 
think it Protestant enough. They were called " Puri- 
tans," because they professed to wish to have the 
religion of the English made more " pure " than it 
was. They were still members of the Church of 
England and loved it very much. 

There were some among them, however, who 
broke away from the Church of their childhood and 
were called '' Separatists," because they thus sepa- 
rated themselves. This was in 1567. Men were 
punished in those days for not going to the parish 



12 



1608.] THE SEPARATISTS. 1 3 

church ; they were even hanged for giving tracts 
away ; and these Separatists found Hfe in England 
uncomfortable. They therefore decided to leave the 
country. This was a grave step to take. They be- 
came pilgrims, like those of whom I have told you 
who went to visit the Holy Places in Palestine. 

Holland was. the country that the Separatists 
chose for their new home, whenever they should 
leave England, because Protestants were allowed to 
do more as they pleased there, and because William 
Brewster, one of their chief men, had been there 
once with the English ambassador. When King 
James the First began to reign the Separatists 
thought they might perhaps be more comfortable in 
England ; but they were disappointed. Some of 
them made an effort to get away the same year 
that Smith and the others sailed for Jamestown. 

They did not succeed, for the king's officers 
caught them and put them in prison. They were 
let out, and the next year they tried again. Part 
of them got on board the ship then, but the women 
and children were stopped by officers on horseback, 
who dashed up at the last moment. It was a pitiful 
scene ; there was weeping and crying on every side, 



14 THE PILGRIMS IN HOLLAND. [1608. 

and quaking for cold. The magistrates finally al- 
lowed the poor creatures to go free ; for they could 
not send them to their homes. They had no homes 
to go to, indeed. So they were allowed to go to 
Holland. There the families were united ; and the 
children began to grow up at Amsterdam, in which 
city they came together. 

Can you imagine the condition of this little group 
of English people living in the midst of a foreign 
nation ? Not only was the nation foreign, but it 
was in a state of disturbance. There was more 
trouble than you would like to hear of; and after 
a while the Pilgrims thought that they must seek a 
home somewhere else. They first went from Am- 
sterdam to Leyden, and then they thought of 
America. Could they go there? Might they not 
in that new land worship God as they pleased ? 
Might they not even do something for the honor 
of England from which they had been driven out ? 

Twenty-seven years before this time, in 1581, a 
plan had been made in England for such an emigra- 
tion of Separatists who had suffered for their faith. 
It had failed, but four persons who had set out on 
the voyage went from England to Amsterdam, and 



1620.] THE PILGRIMS GO TO AMERICA. 1 5 

the scheme was well known there at the time of the 
present discussion. 

They thought long and carefully ; they prayed 
and they wept alone and together. They thought 
of Guiana, that Sir Walter Raleigh had so highly 
spoken of; of Virginia, where some Englishmen had 
already gone ; and they decided that Virginia was 
the place for them. 

The Pilgrims got a patent from the Virginia Com- 
pany, in 161 9, and formed a little company of their 
own for the purpose of founding a colony. They 
were not going to get gold, and in this respect 
they differed from all who had sailed for America 
before them. They thought that religion was the 
greatest thing in the world, and they wanted to live 
in accordance with what they considered right. If 
any one went with them, he was to be obliged to 
do as they did. They had a little vessel called the 
Speedwell, and with much prayer, and joyful sing- 
ing of psalms, they went on board. 

On the 2 2d of July, 1620, they sailed away for 
Southampton, in the southern part of England, 
where they were to meet the Mayflower, another 
and larger ship. It was the fifth of August when 



l6 THE MAYFLOWER OFF CAPE COD. [1620. 

both vessels sailed for America ; but the smaller 
ship proved unworthy, and they all went to Ply- 
mouth for safety. 

On the sixth of September the Mayflower set 
sail alone, with one hundred and two passengers, 
— men, women, and children. They were bound 
for some point near the Hudson River, within the 
limits of the Virginia Company. Navigation was not 
sure in those days, and the little ship saw land off 
the shores of Cape Cod, near the end of November. 
They were in the limits of New England, as the 
region had been named six years before, by John 
Smith. 




CHAPTER III. 



THE PILGRIMS FIND LIBERTY. 




HE Pilgrims had come over the stormy ocean 
to find peace and Hberty. They all felt alike 
in regard to religious matters, and they 
simply wished liberty to live according to their views. 
Just as we go into our houses to have peace and 
quiet, so they came to America to enjoy the same. 
They thought that they had shut out all who would 
be inclined to disturb them ; it did not occur to 
them that anybody who did not hold their opinions 
would ever cross the ocean to interfere with their 
comfort. 

As the waves had thrown the Pilgrims upon a 

coast that was not within the limits of the laws of 

the Virginia colony, and the patent they brought with 

them was of no use, they thought it important to 

17 



1 8 A SOLEMN COVENANT. [1620. 

agree upon the rules that were to govern them be- 
fore settnig foot on shore. They therefore drew up 
a covenant that all signed. In it they bound them- 
selves to obey such just laws as should be from time 
to time enacted for the regulation of the colony. 
It is the first case in modern times of the formation 
of a government by mutual agreement by men who 
had equal rights, as they established themselves in 
a new country. There was to be no king, no nobil- 
ity, no bishop. 

This solemn and important deed done, an explor- 
ing party was sent out, and on the twenty-first of 
December some of the Pilgrims landed on a certain 
rock at Plymouth. John Smith had given the spot 
its name. There they decided to start their town. 
It was a good place for the purpose. There was a 
fine harbor, a plenty of sand and clay for bricks, 
mortar, and pottery ; sweet, fresh water abounded, 
and there was a hill on which a lookout and fort 
might be constructed. When Sunday came they all 
rested ; but they were very careful to write down 
the fact that they did not rest on Christmas, because 
they thought that day was improperly honored by 
the Church that they had left behind. 



1620.] SUFFERING AT PLYMOUTH. 1 9 

Their first labor was to build a fort for their 
cannons, and a storehouse for the provisions. Then 
they laid out lots for the houses they were to live 
in. These were of logs, of course, and had oiled 
paper instead of panes of glass to let the light in. 
It was cold, as it usually is in winter in New England, 
and the settlers were much interrupted. While the 
building was going on many of the party made the 
Mayflower their home, and it was not until March 
of the following year that they had all left her. So 
many had died that by that time the party was re- 
duced by half. 

They suffered much from bad food, from cold, and 
from wintry storms. When we imagine the half-built 
cabins in the snow-drifts, and remember that, as it 
was winter, there was no fresh vegetable food to be 
had ; and, as there was no other settlement near, 
that there was no person to give any help, it does 
not seem strange that the deaths were as many as 
one every three days. 

Besides all the actual troubles, there must have 
been a constant fear lest the Indians, whose fires 
they had seen on the hills, should come stealthily 
upon them, and perhaps destroy them all. It was 



20 THE FIRST INDIAN APPEARS. [1621. 

a situation that called for all the strength of the 
stoutest hearts. The Pilgrims were equal to the 
demand. They had made up their minds that their 
work was an important one, and had said before they 
left Holland, that all great and worthy actions are 
beset with dangers, and that strong hearts and much 
courage would be needed to meet the dangers, and 
to perform the great acts. 

By the time the Mayflower was empty of its 
passengers fair weather had come, and the Pilgrims 
were cheered by the sweet singing of birds in the 
woods. Then the Indians first appeared. They had 
stolen some tools from the settlement before, but 
none of them had been seen. It must have been 
an exciting moment when the first brown man came 
into the hamlet one warm mornine ! 

Did he come in peace ? His first word showec] 
that all was well. He exclaimed, in broken English, 
*' Welcome ! " It must have been a welcome indeed 
to the Pilgrims ! Miles Standish, who had been 
chosen captain of the men who were able to form 
themselves into a military band, was ready to protect 
all the others from attacks ; but it was not necessary, 
for the Indians were friendly, and remained so for 



THE PLYMOUTH DEMOCRACY. 21 

more than fifty years. They taught the settlers how 
to plant corn, and helped them in other ways. 

The government was managed by all the voters. 
They were called freemen. They all met and made 
choice of a governor (who was fined if he would 
not serve), and a few others who were his advisers, 
or Council. It was very simple. A democracy, it 
is called ; or government by the people, because 
demos, in Greek, means the people. 




CHAPTER IV. 



THE ENGLISH PURITANS MAKE A MOVE. 




LL through the reign of James the First 
there was a controversy between him and 
his people, or the representatives of his 
people. He thought that as king he was a ruler 
directly ordained by God, just as the Bible told him 
king Saul had been in ancient times. The people 
began to think, on the contrary, that a king was a 
person to look after their rights and to protect 
them, — that he was in some sort their servant. 
King James said that the '' Puritans and Novelists " 
were sects that ought not to be allowed to exist 
in a well-governed land. By "Novelists" he meant 
persons who preached " novel " or new doctrines, 
such as those that he hated. 



1623.] ADVENTURERS AT CAPE ANN. 2^ 

We have seen that as time went on some of the 
Puritans left the Church of their king because 
they were not able to agree with it. Most of them 
did not go out; and when James died and his son 
Charles the First came to the throne (in 1625) 
they opposed him as strongly as they had his father. 
After a while they put him to death, because he 
wished to govern them without the help of the men 
whom they had sent to London to Parliament to ex- 
press their wishes. 

Meanwhile, before James died some shipowners 
of the County of Dorset, which is situated on the 
English Channel just east of Devonshire in which 
Plymouth lies, formed themselves into a body called 
'' the Dorchester Adventurers," under the direction 
of the Rev. John White, rector of Trinity Church at 
Dorchester, for the purpose of making a settlement 
in New England. Mr. White wanted a place where 
those who went to America might have a good home, 
and be provided for, not only with supplies obtained 
by farming and hunting, but also with religious in- 
fluences. The Adventurers bought a tract on Cape 
Ann in 1622, and the next year sent over a few 
persons to pass the winter there. Gloucester stands 



24 ENDICOTT'S PEACEFUL SPOT. [1628. 

on the spot they chose. Nothing went well, how- 
ever, and the settlement was removed to Naum- 
keag, about fifteen miles to the southwest. 

In 1628 another step was taken. The Council 
for New England made a grant to John Endicott 
and others of a tract included between lines drawn 
from points three miles north of the Merrimac and 
three miles south of the Charles River, from the 
Atlantic to the South Sea, as the Pacific Ocean was 
then called. This was a vast territory ; but as 
America was thought to be an island, it was not 
supposed to be so great as it really was. 

It was understood that if the lines mentioned 
crossed any regions already occupied by Christians 
they were not included in the grant. The corpo- 
ration was called ''The Governor and Company of 
the Massachusetts Bay in New England." On the 
20th of June a small party sailed for Naumkeag, and 
arrived safe at the beginning of the beautiful month 
of September. There was at first a little disagree- 
ment between Endicott's party and the men who 
were already on the spot, but it was easily settled, 
and the name of the place was then changed to 
Salem, which in Hebrew means peaceful. Endicott 



1629.] THE SIMPLE AMERICAN WORSHIP. 2$ 

was put in command, as director of the colonists, 
for the proprietors. 

The following year the Rev. Francis Higginson 
and others came to Salem. Higginson had great 
influence over the affairs of the plantation. He 
found less than a dozen houses, but a good deal of 
corn planted that appeared very well. 

The colonists finding themselves free to do as 
they wished, did not worship according to the forms 
of the Church of England, but had much simpler 
exercises, more in keeping with the plain log houses 
in which they gathered. If any came among them 
who were not willing to do as they did, they promptly 
sent them away ; just as we should send a man out 
of our house if he would not conform to the order 
of the family. This was treating such persons just 
as the Church at home had treated the settlers. 




CHAPTER V. 



AN IMPORTANT MEETING IN CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND. 




WISH that I could have been In a certain 
apartment at Cambridge, England, on the 
26th of August, 1629. There were twelve 
men there whom it would have been a pleasure to 
meet. One of them was John Winthrop. He was 
forty-two years old, and moved in circles frequented 
by men who had been associated with such persons 
as Lord Bacon, the Earl of Essex, and Lord Bur- 
leigh. Another was Sir Richard Saltonstall, of York- 
shire ; and there were John Humphrey, a learned 
and good man, son-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln ; 
Isaac Johnson, richest of the group, who had 
also married a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln ; 
Thomas Dudley, who had cheered for the defeat of 
the Spanish Armada, and had fought under Henry 
of Navarre ; William Vassall, a rich owner of estates 
26 



1629.] AN INTERESTING PURITAN MEETING. 2/ 

in the West Indies, and other country gentlemen 
of fortune, enHghtenment, and education. 

These gentlemen had met to consider an impor- 
tant matter. They thought that the nation was in 
great danger ; that the king was getting more and 
more disposed to trample upon their rights ; and 
that it might be their duty to leave the country. 
They could go to America and be free and happy. 
The question was whether they could take with 
them the charter that had been given to the Gov- 
ernor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, and 
control the affairs there, far away from the king. 

John Winthrop and his company thought that if 
they were permitted to govern the colony from Lon- 
don, they might from a ship in the Thames, or on the 
ocean, or even from distant Salem. They agreed to 
go to New England if the company would vote to 
transport the charter there too. They would not go 
if they were to be ruled by a corporation in England. 
They had higher motives than money-making, though 
their charter had little to say about motives. They 
wished to send over some colonists of high character, 
because they felt that too many of those who had 
gone to the New World were unfit to begin a nation. 



28 A SIMPLE CHANGE. [1629. 

Lawyers said that the charter might be transferred 
to those members who were wiUing to go ; and on the 
twenty-ninth of August it was voted that the transfer 
should be made. It was simply changing the place 
of meeting ; but it proved the laying of the foundation 
of a Puritan commonwealth. Probably the gentlemen 
who discussed the subject at Cambridge thought that 
a large number of the best citizens of England would 
in time find their way across the ocean. 




CHAPTER VI. 




THE GREAT NEW ENGLAND EMIGRATION. 

HE " Great Emigration," as the Puritans 
called It, had thus been solemnly planned. 
On the seventh of April, 1630, the ship 



Arbella, with John Winthrop on board, lay In the 
harbor of Yarmouth, off the Isle of Wight, ready to 
depart. Ten other ships were also there, and there 
were some seven hundred passengers. They were 
not Separatists, they were Puritans. 

England "rang from side to side" when the news 
of the great undertaking was noised abroad. Win- 
throp asked the prayers of those who remained, and 
he addressed a solemn farewell to England and her 
Church, which was expressed in very quaint and 
old-fashioned words of affection. 

Sixty-one days brought the Arbella to the coast 

29 



30 JOHN WINTHROP AT SHAWMUT. [1630. 

of Mount Desert, visited before by the French and 
by John Smith, and they then passed Smith's Isles 
(now the Isles of Shoals), and Cape Ann, after 
which, on the twelfth of June, the party landed safe 
at Salem. 

Winthrop had been chosen governor, and brought 
the charter with him. Endicott ceased to represent 
the proprietors. They did not need a representative 
any longer. They were on the spot themselves. 
Salem did not suit Winthrop, and after resting a 
week he went away to find a better site for the 
settlement. On the seventeenth of June he sailed 
into Boston harbor, and determined that the spot 
on which Charlestown is now situated was the best 
for the purpose. He therefore removed to that point, 
and it became the capital. 

Opposite Charlestown there was a promontory 
called Shawmut. As it had three hills on it, the 
settlers named it Trimountain. The water proved 
bad at Charlestown, and the settlers moved in con- 
siderable numbers to Shawmut. They found an 
Englishman named Blackstone on the spot, but 
bought his property, and he moved away to Rhode 
Island, where you may find his name still. 



1630.] ST. BOTOLPH'S TOWN. 3 1 

Shawmut was a very good place for a new settle- 
ment. It was almost surrounded by water. The 
isthmus connecting it with the mainland was so 
narrow that the water of the bay often washed com- 
pletely over it, and of course it was easy to protect 
it from attacks on any side. Here the first General 
Court ever held in America was opened in October, 
1630. The place was soon renamed Boston, after 
a town in England, but neither of the old names 
was ever forgotten. Boston is a contraction of St. 
Botolph's town. The Puritan capital thus took the 
name of a Catholic saint, — St. Botolph, after whom 
the English town was called. 




^^P 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE DUTCH CLAIM THE HUDSON RIVER. 




HE French and Spanish had made many 
efforts to settle In the New World, but they 
were the only Europeans, except the Eng- 
lish, who had tried. Now the Hollanders enter the 
lists. The Dutch were great traders ; they had made 
large sums by sending ships to the East Indies, 
and to other parts of the world. 

In 1609 they sent out an English seaman, Henry 
Hudson, to see if he could not find a way to the 
Indies by the Northwest route. He sailed in a vessel 
named the Half Moon, and met the usual obstacles 
that have always stopped explorers in the regions 
of ice. 

When he saw that he could not do what he wished, 
he determined to find his way throiigh America. He 

32 



1609.] WHY THE DUTCH MADE CLAIMS. 33 

ascended the River of the Mountains, as he called 
the Hudson, just as Champlain had sailed up the St. 
Lawrence and Smith up the James, hoping to find 
himself coming out on the South Sea. 

He went as far as the Catskill Mountains, and then 
returned to its mouth, where Dutch traders afterward 
established themselves on an island called by the 
Indians Manhattan. The natives had been struck 
with fear and wonder, when they saw Hudson's ships, 
and were well pleased to have him sail away. 

It is said that Hudson gave the Indians their first 
taste of rum, a liquor which was destined to be a curse 
to them ever after. We read also that at about the 
same time Champlain, who was not far away from 
the Hudson River, showed the Indians how to use 
gunpowder, on the lake that bears his name, very 
near the present site of Ticonderoga. If this be 
true, it is not a little strange that these two imple- 
ments of horror should have been placed in the hands 
of the savages so near together in time and place. 

On the strength of these discoveries the Dutch 
claimed the region from Delaware Bay to Cape 
Cod, and called it New^ Netherland. The first settle- 
ment was made at Brooklyn, Long Island, in 1623, 



34 NEW AMSTERDAM BEGUN. [1626. 

though traders had bartered for furs before that. 
The same year a fort was built where Albany now 
stands, and another on the Delaware. 

A few small houses had been built on Manhattan 
Island as early as 1613, and in 1626 the whole island 
was bought of the natives for a few dollars. The 
settlement was called New Amsterdam. Then an 
earnest effort was made, and villages were begun in 
various places in the vicinity. 

The" Dutch people did not move toward the New 
World very willingly, however, and the government 
began to encourage special favorites by offering them 
great tracts over which they might have authority, 
if only they would put settlers on them, and sup- 
port a clergyman, a schoolmaster, and a comforter of 
the sick. Such men were called " patroons," that is, 
patrons, or protectors, and they became very rich. 
The settlers did not always think them " protectors," 
and sometimes they rebelled against them. 




CHAPTER VIIL 




THE DUTCH DO NOT SUCCEED. 

HE Dutch held their possessions for about 
seventy years, though it was no easy 
matter to do it. They finally gave up their 
claim without any great appearance of sorrow. They 
did not fail to leave their mark in America. Many 
of the best people in the great and rich state of 
New York bear their names, and are proud of their 
ancestry. They have reason to be. 

There are ways and customs in New York, too, 
that show the marks of the Dutch. They gave 
many names to the towns. There are some that 
end in kill, which means a stream, like Sparkill, a 
spare stream, and Fishkill ; then there are also Rens- 
selaer and Vansville, which are Dutch. Some day you 
will perhaps read an amusing account of the Dutch 

35 



36 THE DUTCH COME TO AMERICA. 

in New York, which was written by Washington 
Irving. It is filled with gentle humor. I was much 
interested in it when I was a boy myself. 

One would have supposed that such a people 
as the Dutch would be very successful. They had 
just passed through a great war with Spain, and had 
thrown off the authority of Philip the Second ; they 
were able and hard-working. They came to Amer- 
ica in the spirit of the Spaniards, however. They 
wished to make money ; but their method was trade. 
They did not intend to wring gold from the natives, 
or to dig it from the earth. In this respect they 
w^ere nobler than the Spaniards. 

The Pilgrims had been asked to settle in the 
region of the Hudson River on the Dutch domains, 
but they had refused. They intended to go to the 
" northern part of Virginia," but at last arrived at 
Plymouth. This was the only plan that had been 
• formed for a colony up to that time. The best 
founded hopes for growth were from the fur-traders, 
and those were blasted by frequent wars with the 
Indians. The traders vexed the natives ; the natives 
made raids upon the Dutch settlements ; the Dutch 
made horrid massacres in return ; and it seemed 
that there would be no end of bloodshed. 



1664.] THE DUTCH LOSE NEW AMSTERDAM. 3/ 

There was another reason why these efforts did 
not prosper. In all the English colonies the men 
were nearly of the same rank ; but among the 
Dutch there were various castes. The wealthy pa- 
trons formed one that was at times hostile both to 
the other colonists and to the officials. There were 
religious troubles also. The Dutch had an estab- 
lished church at home, and the ministers belonging 
to it who came to New Amsterdam determined that 
no one should be allowed to preach or go to 
church who did not belong to their body. This in- 
terfered with the Baptists, Lutherans, and Quakers, 
and they were severely dealt with. These persecu- 
tions were finally stopped by order of the govern- 
ment at home ; but they did much harm. 

There were four Dutch governors. They were 
troubled by their neighbors on the north and the 
south ; by the Swedes who had come and made 
settlements in Delaware, and by the English, who 
had straggled into Connecticut. All at once Peter 
Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor, was surprised 
by hearing that a fleet of ships was sailing into 
his magnificent harbor. 

They were English. King Charles the Second 



38 NEW YORK TAKEN BY THE DUTCH. 1673.] 

had granted the New Netherlands to his brother, 
the Duke of York and Albany, and here were his 
ships come to claim possession ! Peter Stuyvesant 
was angry, but he gave up. He could not well do 
otherwise. His English citizens were well pleased 
to change rulers ; and the Dutch did not care, or 
perhaps they were smarting under his tyranny, and 
were glad to see him cast down from power. 

The name of the place was changed to New 
York, in honor of its new owner. This was in 1664. 
Eight years afterward war broke out between Eng- 
land and Holland, and in 1673 New York was 
taken by the Dutch again ; but they kept it only 
a year. Since that time they have had no posses- 
sions in America. The Dutch had conquered the 
Swedes in 1655, ^^^ so the Swedes came under the 
dominion of the English. 





CHAPTER IX. 

OTHER SETTLEMENTS DOT THE MAP. 

HE map of America was filling up all this 
time. It was blank enough for a hundred 
years ; but while the Pilgrims and the Puri- 
tans and the Dutch were pushing their colonies, 
each after its own way, settlements were here and 
there appearing in spots that had been wildernesses. 

Trees were cut down in the forest, and a log hut 
was built with great pains ; a little scrap of land was 
dug up about it, and some corn planted. Then an- 
other hut appeared. The new-comers began to barter 
their European products with the bronzed men who 
cautiously came out of the woods. 

Ships appeared from England and other countries, 
and went back again ; mothers and daughters came, 
and began to make the litde cabins hum with the 



39 



40 THE SCOTCH WANT TO COME. [1621. 

sound of the spinning-wheel ; the cabins themselves 
received additions. There came men with money, 
who were able to put up larger houses ; villages 
grew into towns, and there were traders who brought 
goods for the settlers to buy. Blacksmiths and car- 
penters and masons and potters were busy ; every- 
thing seemed to be going on well. 

All of a sudden the whoop of the Indian would 
startle the busy settlers, and they would wake in the 
darkness of night to see their dear homes surrounded 
by murderous savages ! Perhaps every house would 
be burned, many of the people killed, and the wives 
and daughters carried off into the woods to be tor- 
tured or to die of exposure ! Filling up the map of 
America was not a holiday work. 

Let us look at some of the early settlements. 
They appeared one by one, like dots on the map. 
In 1 62 1 a grant was made to a Scotch favorite of 
King James the First (you know he was a Scotchman 
himself) of all the territory between the Passama- 
quoddy River and the St. Lawrence. 

The French claimed the land ; but no matter, — 
this Scotchman, whose name was William Alexander, 
determined to plant a colony there, and make a New 



1629.] MAINE AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. 4I 

Scotland in the New World. We call the region 
Nova Scotia yet, though Alexander made a failure 
of his efforts. He wished to put a Presbyterian 
colony between the French on the north and the 
Puritans on the south. His settlers found the French 
at Port Royal, and thought best not to disturb them. 
A missionary settlement was made on Mount Desert 
Island at an earlier date (1613), but it did not re- 
main long. It was sent away by Argal, governor of 
Virginia at the time, who happened to sail by soon 
after it was established. 

There was a very determined man named Gorges, 
who began settlements on the coast of Maine. He 
had long been interested in that region. He obtained 
a grant In 1622, and another seven years later, and 
was Interested in a vaguely described territory called 
Laconia. A part of this became Maine and part 
New Hampshire. In the course of a few years the 
towns of Dover and Portsmouth, BIddeford and Saco, 
were begun. 



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CHAPTER X. 




THE RUIN OF A GOOD KING'S PLAN. 

HERE was a good king of Sweden in the 
days of which we are writing who lost his 
hfe fighting for the Protestants in Germany. 
His name was Gustavus Adolphus. He had many 
wise thoughts, and among them was one which led 
him to plan a colony of his subjects in America. 
His country was one of the homes of the strong 
Norsemen in the olden time, and it had produced 
many a good man and true who had done great 
things for the world in which he lived. 

Not long before his death in battle, Gustavus 
wrote about the colony that he had planned for 
America, — ''It is the jewel of my kingdom." He 
had visions of a strong state growing up on our 

shores composed of the best of his people. Had 

42 



1632.] LITTLE QUEEN CHRISTINA. 43 

he lived, he would have seen his hopes overturned, 
for nodiing came of the colony. 

There was a man in Sweden who knew a o-reat 
deal about commerce and colonies. His name w^as 
the strange one of Usselinx. Years he studied the 
subject, and at last, a short time after the Pilgrims 
had planted themselves at Plymouth, he obtained a 
right to trade in foreign parts, and to plant colo- 
nies. A colony was planned for America. It was 
to be composed of freemen ; no slaves were to be 
permitted within its limits. The men were to take 
their wives and children ; they would not go like 
the Spaniards, alone, but like the Puritans and the 
Pilgrims. This was in 1626. 

They had confidence in their right arms, and be- 
lieved that the diligence and intelligence of the Swedes 
would work out something that would bless mankind, 
and especially the Protestant world. On the field of 
Lutzen, in 1632, Gustavus ceased his labors, but 
his enterprise was taken up and commended to the 
people of Germany as well as his own subjects. 

Gustavus left a daughter, a litde girl of six years, 
named Christina, who had a good minister, and 
they encouraged the plan for a colony. Years 



44 A SP:TTLEMENT on TINICUM island. [1643. 

passed, however, and it was not planted. It was 
1638 before an expedition was sent out. The com- 
mander was not the best man for such service. 
He landed near the head of Delaware Bay, and be- 
gan the colony of New Sweden by building a fort, 
which he named after the queen, on a tract bought 
of the Indians. It was well that the land was 
bought of the Indians ; but it was ill that it hap- 
pened to be claimed also by the Dutch. 

As we have seen done in other cases, the settlers 
sent home briMit sfories of the loveliness of the new 
land, and the result was that other emigrants came 
out. Another settlement was begun in 1643, ^t an 
island bearing the name of Tinicum, not far from 
where Philadelphia now stands. You may find the 
strange name on the map still, and it belongs to 
the same island. 

The colony grew somewhat, but the Dutch kept 
their eyes upon it, and so did the English. I have 
already told you that the Dutch proved strong enough 
to overcome the Swedes. In 1655 they took fort 
Christina, and in fact the whole of New Sweden. 
Some of the settlers swore to be faithful to their 
Dutch conquerors ; but all would not. Those who 



1655.] THE DAM OF THE AMSTEL. 45 

would not were obliged to leave their new home. 
There had not been more than six hundred or seven 
hundred persons there in all. When New Amster- 
dam was surrendered to the English, in 1664, New 
Sweden went with it. 

The city of Amsterdam afterward bought New 
Sweden, and it became New Amstel, and after a few 
years that name covered Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
and Delaware, as they lie on our maps. Amsterdam 
in Holland is on the river Amstel, and its name means 
the dam of the Amstel. Christina became Altena. 
It was afterward called Willingtown, and is now 
Wilmington. 

We cannot help feeling sorry that the good plans 
of Gustavus and his little daughter came to nothing. 




CHAPTER XL 



A REFORMED PURITAN. 




HERE never was a reform so perfect that 
some man could not find a way to make it 
better. The Puritan, as we know, wished to 
make his church purer. He came all the way to 
America to have freedom to manage his affairs in 
his own way. He was not willing that other people 
should live with him unless they would agree to be 
governed by his rules. He would not give his con- 
sent to the way in which the government was man- 
aged in England, but he was determined that every- 
body who came to Massachusetts should give con- 
sent to his way. This was rather one-sided. 

The winter of 1630, just after the town of 
Trimountain had received its new name Boston, 
was very severe, and the poor colonists were on the 
46 



1631.] ROGER WILLIAMS GOES TO BOSTON, 47 

point of Starvation. They were obliged to live on 
mussels and clams, with some fish and nuts ; a few 
obtained a little Indian-corn, and ground it into 
meal. It was very hard for them, and yet we 
find them saying that their children were fat and 
happy, and that they trusted in the Lord. They 
appointed a Fast to be held in February, 1631. 

The day before this Fast was to have been ob- 
served a ship arrived from Bristol with provisions, 
and a day of Thanksgiving was held instead of a 
Fast. On the same vessel there came a young 
minister named Roger Williams, who did not prove 
so welcome as the provisions. He was a brave 
and intelligent person, and did not agree with the 
Church of his fathers ; but he had gone further than 
the Puritans, or even the Pilgrims had. He had 
come to the conclusion that the Golden Rule was 
not a bad one to apply to such cases as his. 

He said to himself, '' If I want to have liberty 
to do as I please, why should I not let other men 
have the same ? " It was a question that with all his 
intelligence he was able to answer in but one way. 
The Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Puritans of 
Boston did not think this was a safe conclusion. 



48 WHAT WILLIAMS THOUGHT ABOUT LAND. [1631. 

They believed that their way was the right one, and 
that everbody ought to follow it. It has been con- 
cluded by Americans that laws ought not to be made 
to govern the opinions of men ; though all their 
acts may be controlled. They may not be put into 
prison for wishing to steal ; but if they break into a 
bank they may be locked up. 

Roger Williams was willing to have his acts 
controlled by laws, but not his opinions. He desired 
to do right, and was willing to be punished if 
he committed any crime ; but he wished to have 
freedom to worship God as his own conscience 
should tell him the Bible tauQrht. He thoueht also 
that Europeans had no right to the land of the In- 
dians unless they bought it. This seems just. He 
thought that it was not right to force a man to go 
to church if he did not wish to go. He thought 
that a man ought not to be forced to pay to sup- 
port the Church if he did not wish to. He thought 
that magistrates might be chosen as well from 
those who were not members of the Church as 
from those who were ; or at least, that some of 
those who were not members of the Church ouo-ht 
to be chosen. These opinions were very dreadful to 



1635.] TROUBLE FOR THE PEOPLE OF SALEM. 49 

the Puritans, especially those about land, which 
affected all their title-deeds. 

Meantime the people of Salem chose Roger 
Williams to be their minister. This was looked upon 
by the men of Boston as exceedingly wrong, and 
it was determined that the people of Salem should 
be deprived of the rights of freemen as long as 
they sustained Roger Williams. This made the Salem 
people give their minister up, though they were very 
sorry. He was left with no one to take his part. 
We cannot imagine how such a man feels. He can 
look nowhere for comfort. Not a man, woman, or 
child in America would be his friend ! 

The people of Salem felt pity on the poor man, 
and begged that he might not be cast out of the 
community in the winter ; but the magistrates were 
determined. They prepared a ship to carry him to 
England, and then sent an officer to his house to 
drag him on board. When the officer opened the 
door, Williams was not to be found. He had taken 
to the woods ; the wild winter, the snow and the 
Indians could better be trusted than the Englishmen 
who had been so much excited over their own hard- 
ships that they had little pity left for others. 



50 PROVIDENCE FOUNDED. [1636. 

Into the woods Roger Williams plunged, and for 
fourteen weeks — that is, more than three months — 
he wandered about, looking for a place to rest. The 
Indians, to whom he had wished to be just, and to 
whom he had done kind deeds, took him to their 
wigwams and preserved his life. 

In the spring he "steered his course" to Narra- 
gansett Bay, and in June, 1636, he set foot on the 
place where a great city has since grown up, and 
called it Providence, because he wished that it might 
be a shelter for all who were troubled in their con- 
sciences. 

He bought from the Indians the land he wanted; 
and then set to work with his hoe and his line to 
gain his living. The Indians loved and honored him; 
Governor Winslow of Plymouth could not help 
having pity on him ; Cotton Mather, of Boston, the 
great preacher, allowed that he was a pious and 
heavenly-minded soul ; and all men to-day speak in 
his praise. 

Has not Roger Williams been paid for all his 
troubles ? He longed to see the Church separated 
from the State, and we have them separated now. 



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CHAPTER XII. 




THE BALTIMORES BEGIN A NEW SORT OF COLONY. 

E must feel, as we study the slow growth of 
the colonies on the shores of America, some- 
what as though we were ourselves building 
up a commonwealth. We watch the additions that 
are made to the villages and towns ; we enter into 
the feelings of the^ enterprising men in England who 
form the plans, and the more enterprising men who 
cross the ocean with their families to begin settle- 
ments. We stop once in a while to look back and 
compare the condition of affairs with what Columbus 
saw when he set up his cross on the island that he 
first found. 

What should we have seen if we could have sailed 
in a balloon over the continent in the year that Roger 
Williams fled to the woods? Let us look. There 



52 THE AMERICAN SETTLEMENTS. [1636. 

were the English in New England, claiming almost 
the same territory that the six New England states 
now occupy. There were their brethren in Virginia, 
who were doing their best to make the region that 
is now covered by the State of Virginia, and by part 
of North Carolina, English ; and there were some 
new-comers doing the same for Maryland. That was 
all that we could connect with the colonists from 
England. 

In Florida we should have seen a few Spaniards 
pretending to occupy the land, and claiming a part 
of what is now Georgia. The Dutch at that time 
had not given up the strip along the Hudson, or 
North River as it was called, and they claimed the 
Jerseys also. The Swedes had not been driven out 
of Delaware. 

What of the rest of the continent? Canada was 
New France, of course ; but the name was carried 
also over all the lake region, over New York State, 
except the lltde strip that the Dutch held ; over all 
the Ohio region and the valley of the Mississippi ; 
over South Carolina and Georgia, and a part of North 
Carolina. 

What a vast territory! What hope could the 



MARYLAND'S SWEET NAME. 53 

Spanish and the Swedes and the Dutch have, that 
they could keep their colonies from falling into the 
hands of a people who covered such vast tracts, and 
had such remarkable talent for making the Indians do 
as they wished ? 

What hope could the English, indeed, have of 
holding the little territory on which they had planted 
colonies ? It will be interesting to watch the progress 
of events, and see how the struggle for possession 
of America is to end. Perhaps we are too much in 
the position of a person who has read the end of 
a story, and knows how it comes out ; but we may 
try to forget that, and keep right on just as if we did 
not know. 

We have looked a little at the beginning of each 
of the colonies that I have mentioned, except that 
of Maryland. W^hy was it called by that sweet name ? 
It is even more musical than Virginia, and like that 
name it came from a queen. The queen that was on 
the throne when this settlement was made was Hen- 
rietta Maria, wife of Charles the First. Maria is the 
Latin form of Mary, and that is the reason why this 
state received its name. Perhaps it means Star of 
the Sea, and that would make it appropriate for a 
colony reached over the sea. 



54 AVALON AND FERYLAND. [1620. 

There was a member of the Virginia Company 
named George Calvert. He obtained a grant of a 
region still known on our maps as Avalon. It is on 
the island of Newfoundland. The name reminds us 
of King Arthur, and of the poems of Tennyson. It 
was given to an imaginary island in the Middle Ages 
that was supposed to lie in Ocean, not far from Para- 
dise, and was said to abound in apple orchards. 
Calvert had been told that " Newfoundland" was a 
charming region, that fruits and vegetables would 
grow marvelously well, and that there was also good 
fishing on the surrounding sea. 

Two or three years after the Pilgrims went to 
Plymouth, Calvert sent some settlers away to Avalon. 
He spent large sums to establish them. The plain 
name Ferryland was given to the place. It did not 
prosper. The settlers found that the winter was very 
long ; that the soil was not so fertile as they had been 
told it was, and that the French, and even the Spanish, 
would not let them fish in peace. Calvert decided 
that nothing could be done there ; and so he sailed 
away to Virginia in 1629. There he was not wanted. 
He was a Catholic, and the Catholics were at that 
time as much persecuted in England and by Eng- 
lishmen everywhere as the Puritans were. 



1632.] LORD BALTIMORE PROPRIETOR. 55 

This decided Calvert to try to get such a grant 
as he had had for Avalon, but in a warmer cHmate. 
He looked across the Potomac and saw the place he 
required. King Charles the First gave it to him ; 
but he made the grant after a different pattern from 
any previous one. Calvert was to be owner, or lord 
proprietor, of the land and the settlers were to have 
the right to govern themselves by representatives 
whom they might elect. It was the first time that 
any colonists had been insured rights of this kind. 

Calvert, who became Lord Baltimore, was a wise 
and benevolent person. One part of his plan was to 
make a place to which Catholics might go and be 
safe from persecution ; but he was determined that 
there should be no persecution of anybody for his 
religion. On the other hand he was careful to 
provide that no law should be made offensive to 
God's true and holy Christian religion, as he ex- 
pressed it. 

George Calvert died before the charter was issued, 
and it came into the hands of his brother, Cecil, also 
Lord Baltimore, who, in 1633, sent out a company 
of people of good family, under a brother, Leonard 
Calvert. They sailed in two ships, the Ark and the 



56 



THE BEGINNING OF MARYLAND. 



[1634. 



Dove, the names of which are typical of the peace- 
ful and wise intentions of the Calverts. They arrived 
in the spring of 1634, and on the twenty-seventh of 
March, amid salvos of artillery from their ships, they 
landed on the bank of a branch of the Potomac. 

They had bought of the Indians a tract of the land 
that the king had granted them, thus carrying out 
the just idea of Roger Williams. The company had 
their difficulties and trials, but they prospered. Many 
who had suffered on account of their religious views 
thronged to Maryland, where all enjoyed peace from 
persecution, except infidels and those who denied 
the Trinity. Even there exceptions were made. 





CHAPTER XIIL 

A FRIEND OF HARRY VANE. 

E have heard of many good persons who 
came to America in early times, and of 
some great men, but of few of high birth. 
The most distinguished person of '' quaHty," as it 
was expressed in those days, to arrive, was a young 
man, Henry Vane, heir to a privy councilor of 
England. He was afterward "Sir" Henry, familiarly 
called by Oliver Cromwell " Sir Harry Vane." He 
was pure-minded, and noble in all respects. The 
great poet Milton wrote a sonnet in his praise. He 
came in 1635. 

The people of Massachusetts were so much 
pleased to have a man of rank among them that 
they chose Vane governor in 1636, instead of John 
Winthrop. They made a mistake, and found it out 



n 



58 MRS. HUTCHINSON PREACHES TO WOMEN. [1636. 

very soon. There was a woman in Boston at that 
time, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who was preaching in 
private houses at meetings of women, certain doc- 
trines that Winthrop and others did not approve. 
Vane took her part. 

It would be difficult for me to explain what 
Mrs. Hutchinson's views were ; but perhaps it will 
do to say that she was more ''liberal" than the 
Puritans of Boston generally. She wanted more 
*' freedom" than the ministers there were willing that 
she should have. Many came to hear her. 

Mrs. Hutchinson spoke with eloquence and force, 
and some persons besides Vane were led to believe 
as she did. One of these was a minister named 
Wheelwright, who had married a sister of her hus- 
band. People said these teachings were like those 
of Roger Williams, or " even worse." They thought 
that a very important crisis had arrived, and the 
court censured Wheelwright for uttering his views. 
Finally they sentenced him and Mrs. Hutchinson, 
and others, to leave the territory of Massachusetts, 
because they thought them unfit to associate with 
the people. This was just what they had done 
before to Williams. 



1638.] EXETER IS SETTLED. 59 

Vane remained awhile longer in Massachusetts, 
but he was always in trouble of some sort, in spite 
of his good intentions. He went back to England 
in 1637, and attained great power; but was at last 
put to death. He was a very unfortunate man. 

When the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson were 
banished, a part of them went with her to Rhode 
Island to unite their fortunes with Roger Williams ; 
but Mr. Wheelright went to the banks of the Pis- 
cataqua River, which he thought was beyond the 
limits of Massachusetts, and began a town in the 
forest, that was called Exeter. It became an im- 
portant place. 

The settlers agreed to live there in amity and 
love, and to be governed by whatever rules were 
right. This arrangement went on well for a year, 
and then, on a day in the summer of 1639, they 
wrote out and signed an agreement to obey what- 
ever wholesome and godly laws might properly be 
made for the purpose. Never was there a more 
independent collection of men and women. In spite 
of the views that were thought so bad in Massachu- 
setts, they managed to live in peace as they built 
up their town. 



60 NEW HAMPSHIRE SETTLEMENTS. [1629. 

There had been other settlements in New Hamp- 
shire before this, as we know. Strawberry Bank, a 
part of Portsmouth, at that time, was settled in 1623 ; 
and other places were begun by fishermen and emi- 
grants from Massachusetts. The region had been 
granted in 1629 to John Mason, one of the Ply- 
mouth Company. It did not grow rapidly. The 
settlers were troubled by Indians; and from 1641 to 
1679 New Hampshire was joined to Massachusetts 
for protection. There was a dispute about the boun- 
dary between the two colonies for a hundred years. 




CHAPTER XIV. 



BEGINNING TO MOVE WEST FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 




E have learned that it has been a law of 
the race to which the English belong that 
it should move westward. We find the law 
does not fail in our history on this continent. The 
settlers in the towns about Boston, at Dorchester, 
Watertown, and Newtown or Cambridge, found them- 
selves too crowded, and began to look for wider room. 
They naturally sought this on the Connecticut River, 
which had been discovered in 1631. The Dutch sailed 
up the Connecticut in 1633, and began a settlement 
at Hartford. People from Plymouth built a trading- 
house at Windsor, later in the same year. In this 
way there were rival claimants, and much trouble 
followed. 

A son of John Winthrop, himself named John, 

61 



62 YOUNG JOHN WINTHROP IN CONNECTICUT. [1635. 

went to England to get permission to plant colonies 
in Connecticut, and returned just after the emigrants 
from the towns around Boston had begun their efforts. 
This seems to be the first example of "going West" 
on our continent. They were about sixty persons, 
with their cattle and their goods. There were no 
roads to guide them as they journeyed ; they went on 
foot through the forest, and it was late in the autumn. 
They sent provisions around by the river, but it was 
filled with ice before their vessels could sail up to 
them. They suffered severely with the cold ; their 
new houses could not be made comfortable. Many 
waded through the snow to places where they could 
hope for better accommodations. 

The next spring, however, more emigrants came. 
They were of the oldest and best settlers on Mas- 
sachusetts Bay. With them came several ministers. 
One was called the '' light of the Western churches." 
He was the Reverend Thomas Hooker, of Newtown. 
One hundred persons formed the company. They 
had most of them once lived in ease and comfort in 
England. Now they walked behind their droves of 
catde through forests without a path. There were 
many streams to cross, there were many swamps in 



1636.] ON THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. 63 

the valleys, and not a house to protect them from 
rain or sun. They slept around camp-fires under the 
blue sky at night. It seems hard to us, but they bore 
it with patience. They saw before them the growing 
towns that were afterward to remember them as 
noble founders of a Christian civilization. 

Hartford and Wethersfield and Windsor were 
now established and made strong ; and there was a 
fort at the mouth of the river, called from the pro- 
prietors, Saybrook. Besides these, there was a 
settlement at Agawam, now Springfield, begun by 
two men from Roxbury, on a site supposed to have 
been selected in 1634 by William Pynchon. The 
route that these pioneers ''blazed" with their axes 
was afterward known as the '' Bay Path," for it led 
to the loved homes on the great bay of the colony, 
which gives its familiar sobriquet to the Bay State 
itself. These men, like those who went to Exeter, 
and like the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, signed an 
agreement that was to stand instead of laws, until 
laws could be made. (1639.) 

The Connecticut pioneers were compassed by 
perils. The Dutch wished to drive them out, and 
the Indians were not willing to see them occupying 



64 THE PEQUOD WAR. [1637. 

lands that they had thought were always to be their 
hunting-grounds. The Indians were many in the 
rich valley of the Connecticut. They were called 
Pequods, and lived on the Thames River, which then 
bore their name. They killed a white man. Perhaps 
he had harmed them ; we do not know. The colonists 
were roused ; they took up their guns, and for a 
few weeks there was a fierce struggle with the natives. 
Finally they were dispersed and slaughtered. The 
colonists felt that they had fought for their homes 
and their families. They struck the savages with 
terror, and secured for themselves some years of 
peace. 




CHAPTER XV. 




DAVENPORT'S HOUSE OF WISDOM. 

HERE is a place west of the Connecticut 
River, on a bay that strikes up four miles 
from Long Island Sound, at which there 
was an interesting gathering in April, 1638. A 
round-faced ministerial-looking man seemed to be 
the leader. He was preaching a sermon. He had 
brought the men who stood about him out Into a 
wilderness for the purpose of founding a colony. 
A branching oak without leaves stretched Its boughs 
above the company. The place was called Qulnnl- 
piack. The oak tree stood on a plain, and beyond 
rose a range of hills like an amphitheater. Not far 
away two great rocks stood out higher than the rest, 
their picturesque sides rising three or four hundred 
feet above the plain. 

65 



66 THE NEW HAVEN GOVERNMENT. [1638. 

The leader was John Davenport, a Puritan of very 
positive principles. He had been obliged to leave 
the Church of England, and had brought a wealthy 
company, led by two merchants, to Boston in 1637. 
They found that town stirred up by the Pequod war 
and the controversy about Mrs. Hutchinson, and 
thought that it was not the place for them to enjoy 
the peace they wanted. 

They intended to be free forever from persons 
who might preach such doctrines as they did not 
approve. On this account they sent men to look for 
a suitable place. It was found on this beautiful bay. 
The Dutch called it Red Hill. The exploring party 
built a hut in which they lived until the others, who 
went by water, arrived. Then Davenport preached 
the sermon the first Sunday after their voyage had 
ended. 

Davenport's text was taken from the account of 
the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. A few 
days later they all held a fast, and then solemnly made 
a "covenant," as they called it, for the government 
of the plantation. Everything was to be ordered 
by the Bible, and as they had no sanction from 
the government they had left, so they did not ac- 



1639.] A MEETING IN A BARN. 6/ 

knowledge the rule of England. This was the first 
step. The colony was the richest of all that had 
been planted in New England, in proportion to its 
numbers. 

The next step was taken in June. All the freemen 
met in a barn that had been put up, and Mr. Daven- 
port preached a sermon again. His text this time 
was this : " Wisdom hath builded her house ; she 
hath hewn out her seven pillars." After the quaint 
fashion of the time, he tried to prove from this text 
that it was fit to choose out seven men who should 
be the seven pillars of their House of Wisdom. 
Members of the church were to be the only freemen, 
and they should have all the affairs of the planta- 
tion in their keeping. This was agreed to, and the 
'' seven pillars" were immediately chosen. They were 
to govern only according to the Bible ; and no per- 
sons were to be permitted to settle among them, 
even by purchasing land, unless the other freemen 
voted that they might. In 1640 the name of the 
place was changed to New Haven. 

It was not long before other plantations were 
begun near by. Milford and Guilford were the first, 
and they also chose seven pillars who were to direct 



62, 



HAPPY COLONIES. 



[1639. 



the church and state. These were very indepen- 
dent colonies. They were happy and comfortable, too, 
and did not have trouble w^ith the Indians. They 
treated the savages justly, but made them understand 
that they were always on the watch, and that no dis- 
turbance from them would be allowed. 




CHAPTER XVI. 



A UNION FOR DEFENSE. 




HEN the Pequods had been all killed or 
driven away, the colonies of Massachusetts 
|^:^^:t;Q^|| ^^^ Connecticut divided their lands between 
them. Just at the end of August, in the same year, 
some ministers and magistrates from Connecticut were 
in Boston. They naturally talked over the troubles, 
and the Connecticut men suggested that the colonies 
might unite in some way, and thus be stronger when 
any enemy should come. They had asked Plymouth 
to send some of their citizens to talk over the matter ; 
but none came, because the notice was too short. 
There were difficulties in the way, and nothing was 
settled. 

The project was not allowed to drop. The dangers 
did not cease to threaten. The people of New Haven 

69 



70 THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND. [1643. 

and roundabout were troubled by the Dutch, and 
they thought help from Connecticut and Massachu- 
setts would be needed some day. Then there were 
the French and the Swedes, too, besides the Indians. 
There was another reason for desiring union. Mat- 
ters in England were growing more and more com- 
plicated, and there seemed to be a possibility that 
the parties of the king and parliament might divide 
the colonists, and that by some move on one side of 
the water or the other, the liberties of the Ameri- 
cans might be endangered. 

The provinces of the Netherlands, with which the 
Pilgrims at least were well acquainted, had made a 
Union ; and thus there was an example ready to be 
followed. In 1643 ^^^ difficulties were surmounted, 
and the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Con- 
necticut, and New Haven made a league of perpetual 
friendship and love, which was written out with much 
care. They called themselves the United Colonies 
of New England, and bound themselves to stand 
together in war and peace, for protection against 
enemies, and for the spreading of the Gospel, or 
even to take the part of their friends, the Commons 
of England, who were then struggling with King 
Charles the First. 



1643.] THE FIRST FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. J\ 

This was a very important movement. It was the 
first union of the EngHsh on the continent. You will 
notice that Maine and Rhode Island were not in- 
cluded. The settlers in Maine were too few to be 
noticed, and the people of Rhode Island were so far 
out of sympathy with the men of the four other 
colonies in religious matters, that there could be no 
union with them then. 

A federal government was established under this 
agreement. Two commissioners, who were to be 
members of the church, were to represent each colony 
and attend to the general business. There was no 
president, and the great colony of Massachusetts did 
not have more representatives than the little one at 
New Haven, or the now poor one at Plymouth. The 
meetings of the commissioners were to be held at 
Boston, Hartford, New Haven, and Plymouth ; but 
there were to be two meetings at Boston for every 
one at each of the other places. This was the only 
advantage that Massachusetts had. 

You may be sure that this union was not liked in 
England, but the time to oppose it had passed. The 
people in America soon saw that it was a good thing 
to be united. In spite of that, however, they did 



J2 CONNECTICUT WANTS TO FIGHT THE DUTCH. [1653. 

not always live peaceably together. There were the 
same kinds of jealousy that afterwards arose between 
the states when they made a union. 

Massachusetts was the biggest, and the others 
were sometimes jealous of her. Connecticut made 
some laws about the trade on her great river. Massa- 
chusetts did not like them, and taxed goods brought 
from other colonies. Connecticut wanted to fight 
the Dutch and Indians in 1653, and though Plymouth 
was willing, Massachusetts was not. The union was 
nearly broken up. 

In fact, when the colonies were separate they 
wanted to unite ; but as soon as they were united 
they began to pull apart. They managed to hold 
together for more than forty years, however, and then 
thought of making a much greater union which 
should include all the English colonies. The Ameri- 
cans had by that time learned how to govern them- 
selves separately and together without any help from 
England. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



AN ARISTOCRATIC COLONY. 




HERE had been rich colonists, and there was 
Harry Vane, who was a man of '"quahty"; but 
the quahty had not done much for America 
yet. After the troubles in England had resulted in 
the execution of Charles the First, the government of 
Cromwell, and finally in the coming back of Charles 
the Second, a desire arose among the courtiers to 
make money by speculation in America. 

A number of lords, earls, and dukes united to 
obtain a grant of land in 1663. They wished a pleas- 
ant country, and therefore looked to the South. The 
region that they chose was that in which Raleigh 
had tried to establish his colony of Roanoke. King 
Charles gave them a patent for it, and named them 
the Lords Proprietors ot the Province of Carolina. 

n 



74 GRAND PLANS OF CERTAIN NOBLES. [1663. 

It made no difference to the king that some Puri- 
tans had bought lands from the Indians and settled 
there in 1660, nor that there was a strong claim to 
the region on the part of Spain. The Spaniards had 
called it Florida, and the English South Virginia. 

No American colony ever started out with such 
grand plans as this one. The territory claimed 
was immense. There were to be nobles, and they 
were to be so carefully protected that no one could 
ever get into the class except by birth. There 
were to be landgraves, and earls, and caciques or 
barons, and what not, and all were to own estates 
that they could only send down to their children 
^nd children's children. There were to be slaves. 
No one was to vote who did not own land. 

The newspapers and books that should be 
printed were to be carefully examined, to see that 
nothing contrary to law should be given to the 
people to read. No church was to be considered 
orthodox except that of England, though all relig- 
ions were to be allowed. There was to be a strange 
Court which was to control the fashions of dress 
for men and women, and ceremonies, pedigrees, 
even the games of the children were to be looked 
over by officers of the law. 



1670.] CHARLES TOWN FOUNDED. 75 

The arrangement was very aristocratic and very 
complicated. It was to be better for the persons 
who governed than for those who were to be 
governed. It was not put in operation at all. A 
simpler set of laws was formed by the colonists who 
came out. They probably did not know of the 
other grand system. They might have found it 
somewhat ridiculous to establish such a government 
among the log-cabins and the swamps of the region 
they settled in. 

The settlers who came were of different sorts. 
There were poor aristocrats ; Separatists from Eng- 
land, Presbyterians from Scotland, Protestants from 
France, Dutch from the New Netherlands, and some 
fugitives from the laws of Virginia. They did not 
compose a good set to build up the colony ; but 
it grew in time, and Charleston became its empo- 
rium. The planters raised rice and sold it for the 
luxuries that they wished to get from England. The 
place was at first called Charles Town, in honor of the 
king ; as the colony was called Carolina, because 
Carolus is the Latin for Charles. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 




WHAT THE FRENCH WERE DOING. 

HAMPLAIN, the Father of New France, that 
vast region which no man at that time 
could measure or describe, died in 1635, 
but the work that he had begun was not to die. 
For many years the French did not cease exploring 
the West and trying to make Christians of the natives. 
They went through the region of the great lakes, 
sailed down the Mississippi, and encountered every 
sort of hardship. Many of them died, martyrs to 
their zeal for discovery, for patriotism, and for 
religion. 

In 1 66 1 the king and cabinet in Paris were dis- 
cussing what should be done for New France, — what 
sort of a government should be given it, and how 
its boundaries might be extended from the Atlantic 
76 



1671.] A GREAT GATHERING OF INDIANS. JJ 

to the South Sea, and through the windings of the 
rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. They determined 
that this great scheme should not fail, and sent 
word to the governor at Quebec to see that it 
was attended to. An expedition was immediately 
sent out to Lake Superior, to search for copper- 
mines and to treat with the natives. 

In the spring of 167 1 there was a grand gather- 
ing of Indians at Sault St. Marie. From hundreds of 
miles they came ; with their squaws and their pap- 
pooses, — down the streams in their bark canoes, 
or overland trudging through the pathless forests. 
They were met by the French officers and the 
Jesuits with cordiality, and for weeks there was 
a succession of sports. They fished, they played 
lacrosse, they had a sham battle, — everything was 
joyous. 

On a certain morning the Frenchmen, armed and 
equipped in their best fashion, and the Jesuits in 
their completest and richest vestments, came out and 
arranged themselves about a cross that had been 
prepared, and was then lying on the ground. A priest 
solemnly, pronounced a blessing on the cross, and 
it was raised up and firmly planted in the ground. 



y^ HOW FRANCE TOOK POSSESSION. [1671. 

Then they all broke out in the words of an old Latin 
song, which may be found in our hymn-books : 

" The royal banners forward go : 
The cross shines forth with mystic glow ! " 

A cedar post was then planted near the cross, 
on which was a metal plate bearing the arms of 
France ; another Latin song was sung, and there was 
a prayer for the king. 

When the prayer was ended, the commander of 
the French stepped forth, and drawing his sword 
turned up a sod, saying, as he did so, that he took 
possession of the region to the north and the south 
on the east and the west, from the Atlantic to the 
South Sea '' in the name of the most high and mighty 
monarch Louis the Fourteenth, king of France and of 
Navarre." He declared that all people who might 
be in the regions were thenceforth subjects of his 
majesty and bound to obey the laws of France. 

When the speech was finished the Frenchmen 
fired their guns, shouted " Vive le Roi ! ^^ and the 
savages made as much din as they were capable 
of, uttering such grunts and yelps as you cannot 
imagine unless you have heard the Indian use his 
lungs. 



1682.] EXPLORATIONS OF LA SALLE. 79 

Among the names that must be remembered In 
this connection are those of the Jesuits Marquette, 
Johet, and La Salle. Marquette went to Canada at 
about 1666, and pressed to the northwest. He made 
a plan to explore the valley of the Mississippi, and 
in 1673 he set out in company with Joliet. They 
went many hundreds of miles through the wilder- 
nesses of Wisconsin and Illinois, and then returned. 
Joliet reached Quebec, but Marquette was too feeble 
to accomplish the journey. He died at a place 
that now bears his name on the shore of Lake 
Michigan in 1675. 

La Salle was more fortunate in his explorations, 
but he too lost his life. He determined to com- 
plete the work of Joliet. The adventures of this 
explorer are as entertaining as a novel. They ended 
in a tragedy. He explored the lakes, went down 
the Illinois to the Mississippi, and down the greater 
river all the way to its mouth. He took possession 
of the valley and called it Louisiana, in honor of his 
king. This was in 1682. 

He went back to France, but In the summer of 
1684 sailed for the mouth of the Mississippi. He 
failed to find it ; but he landed, established a fort, 



80 DEATH OF LA SALLE. [1684. 

and set out to find the river by land. Again he 
failed. Then he decided to look for gold-mines of 
which he had heard in Mexico. In this he failed 
also, and as his desolate and dying party was seek- 
ing to get to Illinois and Canada, the men became 
disorderly, and one of them treacherously shot their 
leader. Thus died one of the most daring of all 
the French explorers. 




CHAPTER XIX. 




HOW SOME FRIENDS WERE TREATED. 

HEN England was in the midst of that strife 
between the king and his commons, of 
which we have spoken before, when the air 
was filled with all sorts of discussions about religion, 
there was a good young shoemaker who began to 
think of these things with great earnestness. He was 
apprenticed to a man who not only mended shoes, 
but also kept sheep, and the youth was oftentimes 
sent out into the fields to look after the flocks. 

Both of these occupations are adapted to make 
men think ; and this particular man followed the lead 
of his opportunities. As he sat upon his bench, or 
laid himself down on the turf, he read his Bible, and 
longed to be good and holy. He did not find peace. 
He went to ministers, but was not comforted by what 

8i 



82 GFX)RGE FOX PROTESTS. [1644. 

they said. Once as he sat by his fire he thought that 
he had a message in his heart from God, and then he 
felt that all he wanted to know might come to him 
if he would only listen to his conscience. He thought 
that God had put a light in every man that should 
make his way clear. 

This man was George Fox. He protested against 
Protestantism as strongly as Protestants protested 
against the doctrines of the Catholics. He became 
a preacher of love and good living, of peace and 
quietness. He felt that one man was as good as 
another, and that no one had a right to command 
another. He did not believe that one man was 
''noble" and another not. The people who followed 
George Fox v;ere called Friends of Truth, which is 
certainly a good name. They loved peace, but they 
lived up to their principles, and that often brought 
them into strife. They refused to take oaths, and 
would have nothing to do with slavery. 

There was no law in Boston against Friends in 
the summer of 1656. At that time two of the women 
who had adopted the doctrines of Fox arrived from 
England, but their trunks were searched, and their 
books burned by the hangman because they were not 



1657.] A LAW AGAINST QUAKERS. 83 

orthodox. Others came and were sent back. Then 
a law was passed against " Quakers," as they were 
nicknamed. This made no difference to the Friends ; 
they were not afraid, and thought it their duty to 
show that they were not. 

They were whipped, they were fined, branded with 
hot iron, they were hanged on the Common ; but they 
did not stop speaking and teaching, — they called it 
" testifying." For six years the horrid work went on, 
and then it ceased. The governor received an order 
from the king telling him to send all the Quakers 
condemned to death to England for trial. Some were 
punished after that, however, and it was several years 
before the poor people had peace. 

It is dreadful to think that such things have hap- 
pened in an American city, but we must remember 
that there were similar punishments in England ; and 
it was long before the good rule of Roger Williams 
was adopted anywhere. Baptists and Episcopalians 
were badly treated also, in New England as well as 
in other colonies. 



CHAPTER XX. 

"KING" PHILIP OF MOUNT HOPE. 

HEN Roger Williams went to Rhode Island 
he was treated with kindness by an Indian. 
His name was Massasoit. He was chief of 
a tribe called the Pokonokets. He lived to old 
age, but he kept peace with the whites for forty 
years and more. In fact, the men in New England 
who had ever known anything of war had by this 
time mostly died. 

The authority of Massasoit over his tribe was 
taken by his son known as Alexander, who did not 
live long. He was succeeded by a brother known 
as Philip, who made his home at Mount Hope, not 
far from Narragansett Bay. This was by no means 
a noble Indian. His palace was a hut ; his richest 
robe was a rough blanket, or a filthy bearskin ; his 
84 



I 



1675.] BAD WORK BY INDIAN WARRIORS. 85 

appetite was satisfied by the most loathsome food ; 
he was without dignity, or even cleanHness. He 
was lazy and careless, timid and submissive, or 
violent and capricious as it happened. 

Probably he became provoked at the people of 
Plymouth in one of his moods, and then set his 
warriors at the work of stealing hogs and cattle or 
burning houses, near their towns. He was hunted 
for, but escaped those who searched for him. 
Meantime his example was followed by other sav- 
ages, who also stole the settlers' stock, burned their 
houses, and slaughtered their wives and children. 

There were six settlements in the Connecticut 
region that belonged to Massachusetts, and of them 
Northfield, Deerfield, and Springfield were burned ; 
but the others, Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield, 
though attacked were not destroyed. More than one 
hundred farmers and others were slaughtered while 
harvesting their grain near Deerfield. The war did 
not end until 1676. Philip had been killed while 
endeavoring to escape from a scouting-party. There 
was a sad war with the Indians in Maine, also, which 
began in 1675, and did not end until 1678. There 
were brutal butcheries and burning of houses at 



86 MONEY COMES FROM IRELAND. 1676.] 

Brunswick, Wells, Kittery, Exeter, Dover, and other 
places. 

This is but a part of the dreadful results of 
this war. Plymouth as well as Massachusetts was 
devastated. Many whites lost their lives, large debts 
were incurred, and it took the colonists a long 
time to recover. Ireland sent nearly one thousand 
pounds to assist the distressed, and Connecticut very 
generously gave up all claim to it, so that the more 
needy might take a larger share. The king and 
court gave nothing ; and the colonists did not ask 
any help in that quarter, preferring to bear the load 
alone rather than to be under obligations, and thus 
risk the loss of any liberty. 




CHAPTER XXL 



THE PEACEFUL FRIENDS IN PENNSYLVANIA. 




HEN King Charles the Second granted to 
his brother, the Duke of York, that region 
west of the Connecticut River and east of 
Delaware Bay, in 1664, the Duke almost immedi- 
ately began to give portions of it away. Thus be- 
fore the fleet, of which I have told you, reached 
New York to take it from the Dutch, he had 
granted all that portion south and west of that city 
to two noblemen. These were John Berkeley and 
George Carteret. 

Both of these men had been intimately asso- 
ciated with the duke in England, and they had 
both also been interested in the colony established 
in Carolina. Carteret had been very useful to the 
political party to which the duke and his father 

87 



S8 NEW C^SEREA, OR NEW JERSEY. [1665, 

belonged, by fighting in the island of Jersey against 
the Commons, in 1649, and on this account the 
duke decided that the new colony should be named 
after that island. Caeserea was the name of the island. 
''Jersey" was a corruption of it, and the name of the 
colony was thus ordered to be New Caeserea, or New 
Jersey. The people liked the latter form better than 
the other. 

The first settlement was made at Elizabethtown, 
where another Carteret landed in August, 1665, 
with a hoe upon his shoulder to show that he in- 
tended to become a planter. In the spring of 1674 
Berkeley sold out his half of the grant, which was the 
southern portion, called West Jersey, to some Friends, 
and William Penn became interested in the region. 
You will notice on the map of New Jersey a straight 
line that separates the counties of Ocean and Bur- 
lington, and runs from Little Egg Harbor north- 
westerly, in a way that might be thought strange if 
it were not known that the state had once been 
divided into East and West Jersey. This is the rea- 
son why we read of " the Jerseys," in some histories. 

When the first Friends found themselves in West 
Jersey, they drew up a form of goverement, just as 



1677.] FRIENDS IN WEST JERSEY. 89 

the Pilgrims and others had In earHer times. They 
put all the power In the hands of the settlers, who 
were to choose commissioners to carry out the laws. 
The Friends had obtained West Jersey In 1674, but 
it was not until 1677 that they made their settlement, 
and then they formed this government. Though 
they had the grant, they had paid the natives for 
the land they occupied. 

We notice that one thing results from another 
In our history ; that there Is always some con- 
nection between the different events. Perhaps the 
New England colonies would not have made their 
plan for a Union If they had not heard of the Union 
of the Dutch provinces In Europe. We know that 
a thing can be done, If we find that some one has 
actually done It, or something like It, before. I said 
that William Penn was Interested in West Jersey. 
Probably it was he who drew up Its form of govern- 
ment. It was natural that he should do something 
more In the way of forming colonies. Let us look at 
him a little more carefully. 

He became one of those who thought as George 
Fox thought, and It was a very important event in the 
history of the Friends when eight years before this he 



90 WILLIAM PENN GETS A GRANT. [1681. 

had thrown In his fortunes with them. George Fox 
himself had just before this visited the American colo- 
nies from north to south, from the settlements of 
Roger Williams to the bogs of the Dismal Swamp 
and the cheerful firesides of Albemarle, and his knowl- 
edge of them must have influenced his disciple. 

William Penn's father and grandfather had been 
officers of the English navy, and he naturally turned 
his thoughts to America as a place where he might 
seek adventure. He was a student at Oxford, and 
finished his education on the continent. When he 
became a Friend he was looked upon as a social out- 
cast by those with whom he had formerly associated ; 
his father turned him from his door ; he was penniless, 
despised, and afflicted ; but he was firm. He was 
thrown into prison ; but he said that he preferred the 
society of the honestly simple to that of the ingen- 
iously wicked. 

It happened that Penn's father had made a loan 
to the king, and instead of the money, after his 
father died, the king gave him a grant of the region 
lying west of the Jerseys that now bears his name. 
He determined to go to the banks of the Delaware 
to begin a " holy experiment," and to found a colony 



1683.] A GREAT TREE AT SHACK AM AXON. 9 1 

on the principles of those despised people who had 
been cast out of England and persecuted in so many- 
other places. 

There was a great excitement when it was known 
at the end of October, 1682, that the young and 
handsome Friend, who had borne so much for con- 
science' sake, had arrived at Newcastle on the Dela- 
ware with a company of Friends. Some English, 
Dutch, and Swedes had settled there, and they all 
joyfully went to the court-house and gave their willing 
allegiance to the new ruler. Penn in turn told them 
that they might live in peace and fear no molestation 
on account of their consciences. He renewed the 
commissions of the public officers who were there, 
and then went farther up the river. At Chester 
another meeting was held, and the people said that 
they would love, serve, and obey William Penn with 
all that they had, and assured him that the day on 
which he arrived was the best they had ever seen. 

Penn would allow no land to be occupied in his 
grant until it had been bought of the Indians, and 
he showed the example that he wished followed, by 
meeting the natives under a great tree at Shacka- 
maxon on the 23d of June, 1683, and there solemnly 



92 THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE. [1683. 

making an agreement with them, as representatives 
of the tribes. It was an agreement of purchase, ac- 
companied with promises of kindness and love to 
endure as long as the sun gave light. 

The Friends did not approve of oaths of any 
kind. They said ''Yea" and ''Nay," and thought 
that was enough. For this reason they did not, 
and the Indians did not, swear to this treaty, and 
yet it never was broken. A man's word ought to 
be good and true, and no oath should be needed 
to make it sure. Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly 
Love, grew up on the rivers that flowed near this 
Treaty Tree. It was laid out at about this time 
by Penn himself. 




CHAPTER XXII. 







A LONG QUARREL ACROSS THE OCEAN. 

S we look at the story of these times, we 
can see without much difficuky that, whether 
the people of America knew It or not, they 
were growing more and more fond of governing 
themselves, and liked less and less to have any orders 
sent to them from the other side of the ocean. 

In England at the same time the king and all 
his officers were thinking that the men in America 
were too independent, and needed restraining. It 
was believed by the king that when the colonies 
made their union in 1643, it was because they in- 
tended at some time to say that they would not 
have him to rule over them. 

Thus by slow degrees a strong jealousy was 
growing up between the king and his American 

93 



94 CHARLES THE FIRST LOSES HIS HEAD. [1649. 

subjects. Let us look at the history of their rela- 
tions a little. We remember that Charles the First 
gave a charter to certain of his subjects to permit 
them to send out emigrants to America, in 1629. 

The very next year this charter was carried over 
to the New World, though the king never intended 
that should be done. He thought that the company 
would make laws for the colony ; but that its mem- 
bers would always be near him, so that he could see 
that they did nothing that he did not approve. 

In the mean time emigrants flocked to New Eng- 
land. Perhaps twenty thousand came in the next 
ten years after Boston was settled, and that was a 
great number. The charter was not made to govern 
such a multitude, and the colonists began to do acts 
that it was never intended by the king that they 
should do. For this reason it was only two or three 
years before efforts were made to take the charter 
away ; but the king's attention was soon completely 
taken up with worse troubles at home, and he was 
obliged to let thoughts of the colonies drop. 

Nineteen years after the Boston settlement had 
been made, King Charles the First lost his head. 
Then there was no king, and the people of Eng- 



1651.] OLIVER CROMWELL FAVORS THE NORTH. 95 

land were governed by a Parliament, which was 
composed of subjects. This body was sure that the 
American colonies ought not to be permitted to go 
on governing themselves as they chose. It asserted 
power by passing a law that no goods should be 
sent from America to any ports except those that 
belonged to England, and that no ships but English 
should carry them. 

Oliver Cromwell, who was at the head of Ene- 
lish affairs then (1651), did not enforce this law in 
the northern colonies, but made it very hard for 
those in the south. The Virginia planter, for exam- 
ple, could send his tobacco only to England and in 
English ships. He was obliged also to pay a duty 
which took away a great share of his profits. The 
reason of this partiality was that the Virginians took 
the part of King Charles, whom Cromwell and his 
party had put to death. 

Parliament thought that it ouo-ht to have more 
authority over the colonies than they approved. It 
passed a law creating a Council to attend to them, 
but the colonies took no notice of it. At about 
this time parliament wanted Massachusetts to take out 
a new patent, and to carry on its government under 



96 MASSACHUSETTS COINS MONEY. [1652. 

that, instead of under the one which the king had 
given. Massachusetts did not reply promptly, but 
waited until England had got into war with Holland 
on account of the navigation laws. They troubled 
that country more than they did New England. 

When England had her hands occupied, the col- 
onists answered that they thought they had a right 
to live under rulers of their own choosing ; that they 
had come a good way for the purpose of having that 
privilege, and had suffered much. There seemed to 
be a hint that perhaps Holland would help them, if 
England should turn them off, and the matter was 
not pressed. Thus for thirty years the colony of Mas- 
sachusetts, at least, was an independent people. 

In 1652 the rulers of Massachusetts began to 
coin money. They made twelve-penny, six-penny, and 
three-penny pieces, with the letters " N. E. " stamped 
on them. This was more serious than making the 
confederation, for it was not at all certain that that 
union was intended to lead to independence. There 
are few things about which the English have been 
more careful than the coining of money. The right 
has always been a prerogative of the sovereign only. 
His portrait has been stamped on the pieces of 



1650.J STRANGE CURRENCY. 97 

gold and silver diat were to pass from pocket to 
pocket, and it was treason for any one else to 
make them. Treason is punished with death, and 
this shows what a crime making- false money was 
considered in England. 

It was not strange that the colonists wanted to 
make their own coins. Much of the money they 
could get from home was sent back to pay for 
goods or taxes, and the colonists were obliged to 
use bullets for coins. In the early times they had 
used " wampum," which was made of shells by 
the Indians. Then they had taken Indian-corn, 
beaver-skins, and other articles, which were not at all 
convenient. Your fathers used postage-stamps and 
other things for currency during the last war, but 
no one has been obliged to take furs and wampum 
for money in our day, and surely it would be very 
inconvenient. 

After a while Cromwell died, and King Charles 
the Second became ruler of England. He kept up 
the struggle with the Americans. He also ordered 
the arrest and trial of the men who condemned his 
father, Charles the First, to death. These men were 
called regicides, that is, king-killers. Some of them 



98 



TilK KING'S TERRIBLE REVENGE. 



[1660. 



had died. The Hving were condemned and punished. 
Several were put to death ; three escaped to America, 
and three who had died were taken from their graves 
and hanged, after which their heads were cut off. 
The king's revenge was terrible ; but he thought 
that his father had not been lawfully executed. 




CHAPTER XXIII. 




THE CHARTER OF MASSACHUSETTS IS TAKEN AWAY. 

OU may Imagine that Charles the Second 
did not treat the Americans better than his 
father and the ParHament had. He was 
angry with the Puritans at home and abroad, as well 
as with all other persons who opposed his authority 
In any way. The laws against them were made 
stronger, and they were executed with great vigor. 
There was little pity for offenders, If they were Purl- 
tans or Separatists. 

A committee of the king's councilors was directed 
to look after the settlement and government of New 
England, though New England still thought it could 
attend to Itself. More severe laws were made about 
ships ; and there were reasons to believe that the king 
would even interfere with religious worship as he 

99 



100 THE KING AND THE COLONISTS POLITE. [1661. 

had in England. He might force them to tolerate 
Episcopalians. These things made the Americans 
thoughtful. They might have a desperate quarrel 
with the king at any time ! 

They had taken as little notice as possible of the 
execution of Charles the First, the government of 
Cromwell, and the coming back of Charles the 
Second ; but now they thought best to send addresses 
to King Charles and to the Parliament. They said 
that they wished to live in peace ; but asked per- 
mission to be directed in religious matters by their 
own consciences. That was what they had gone to 
America for, they said. Still they were just as 
anxious that the Friends should not have permission 
to live as their consciences directed them. They 
were not quite consistent. 

The king politely sent word that he had good will 
toward the colonists ; but they did not trust him, 
especially as he ordered them to arrest and send to 
him the three '' regicides " whom they had welcomed 
quite warmly. The poor refugees escaped to New 
Haven, after having visited Boston and vicinity. The 
governor then commissioned two Englishmen who 
were strangers in New England to search for these 



1662.] MASSACHUSETTS IN OPPOSITION TO THE KING. lOI 

regicides, believing that their want of acquaintance 
with the country would keep them from being success- 
ful. In fact they did not succeed. Everywhere the 
fugitives received sufficient notice to enable them to 
get away from their pursuers. 

All the time the people of the colonies were care- 
ful to study the limits of their duty to the king, and 
to reflect upon what they could do, if his acts should 
become more oppressive. They tried, however, to 
keep up good feeling with him. 

In the course of the second year after he came 
to the throne, Massachusetts sent two delegates to 
England to confer with the king on their behalf. 
They were received graciously, and sent back with a 
letter in which there were kind messages ; but the 
letter contained some things not agreeable. The 
people of Massachusetts were ordered to use the 
forms of worship of the English Church. Many 
thought that a beginning had been made that would 
lead to the ruin of liberty. The forms of the English 
Church were not followed, and thus Massachusetts 
found itself In opposition to the king. 

The English were certain In their own minds that 
the union of the New England colonies had been In- 



I02 THE KING SENDS COMMISSIONERS. [1664. 

tended to weaken the authority of the king, and that 
the two regicides were already at the head of an 
armed force for the same purpose. The Massachu- 
setts men wei*e afraid that their charter might be 
called for at any time, and to make it secure placed 
it in the care of four trusty men, who were to keep 
it in some secret place. 

In the summer of 1664 the commissioners arrived 
who were to take possession of New York. They 
were also to arrange affairs in New England at their 
discretion, according to instructions of the king. The 
people of Boston had heard that the fleet was coming, 
and prepared for it by a fast. They then determined 
to resist the commissioners, because there was no 
authority under the charter for their appointment. 
This was a bold decision. 

Then they wrote a long letter to the king ; hoping 
that by keeping up a correspondence, they might 
delay matters until there should be some change in 
affairs; — perhaps, some one said, there might be a 
revolution in England. There might be another 
Dutch war, and no one could tell how that would 
turn out. Such a war actually occurred in 1665. 
The commissioners took possession of New York 



1665.] PLYMOUTH MAKES PEACE. IO3 

as we already know. Then they visited the smaller 
colonies of New England, and with some difficulty 
arranged their affairs satisfactorily. Connecticut and 
New Haven were united, and the settlements in 
Rhode Island were also brought under one govern- 
ment. Plymouth was poor, but independent. The 
people asserted their loyalty, but declined a charter 
that the commissioners offered them, and would not 
agree to let the king choose a governor for them. 
They preferred to "be as they were," but managed 
to have no controversy with the commissioners. 

Massachusetts was the last to be attacked. The 
commissioners occupied a month in arguments at 
Boston, but without success. Some of the colonists 
thought that the king ought not to be restrained 
from enforcing laws in the colony, but did not like 
the method of sending a commission. Others were" 
of opinion that as they had removed from the 
mother country they were relieved of all alle- 
giance to the king or obedience to English laws. 
These privileges they said had been given them by 
their charter, and they were determined to keep 
them if possible. 

The commissioners could not make any impres- 



104 A HUNGRY ADVENTURER. [1676. 

sion upon the Massachusetts men, and gave up 
trying. For ten years the colony had rest from 
such efforts, though the plan was always kept in 
mind by the English government. England suffered 
at the time from a great fire and terrible plague 
in London, and New England from the war with 
Phillip, of which we have already learned some 
particulars. 

When Massachusetts was weakened by the In- 
dian war, and its homes were still smoking ; when 
mothers and fathers and children were mourning 
their lost ones murdered or carried into captivity, 
a man who has been called the evil genius of 
New England, a hungry adventurer named Ran- 
dolph, appeared in Boston commissioned to inves- 
tigate charges against Massachusetts. It was said, 
for one thing, that the colony had broken the navi- 
gation laws. 

Randolph went about seeking reasons for accusa- 
tion against the magistrates of Massachusetts, and 
then returned to England. There he told of the 
coining of money, and of all other acts that could 
in any way be made to look bad for the colonists. 
The king and his cabinet thought that the time 
had come to punish stubborn Massachusetts. 



1684.] RANDOLPH AND THE KING TRIUMPH. IO5 

There was no longer war with Holland, and 
there was no danger that that country would take 
the colonists' part. The matter was pressed as 
much as possible. Randolph went back and forth 
and raked up all the evidence he could. He stirred 
the king on the one side and the colonists on the 
other. At last the king sent out a writ against 
Massachusetts which was designed to take away 
its treasured charter. 

Randolph was to be allowed the triumph of 
carrying this writ to Boston. He arrived in October, 
1683. Massachusetts still refused, and Randolph 
was obliged to cross the ocean again. The king 
and Randolph finally conquered. The charter was 
declared forfeited, and in July, 1685, i^ was known 
in Boston that the people were at the mercy of 
the King of England. The precious document that 
they had relied upon for protection was snatched 
from them. 








CHAPTER XXIV. 

HOW THE PEOPLE WERE GOVERNED. 

ING Charles the Second died before he 
could send a governor to rule Massachusetts, 
and his brother James, who then became 
king, sent out Sir Edmund Andros, the same person 
who had before been made governor of New York 
by him. This new governor appeared at Boston all 
glittering in scarlet and lace, at the close of 1686. 
It was a great contrast to the landing of the Pilgrims 
who had arrived at Plymouth in the same cold season 
sixty-six years before ; or even to the company that 
came with John Winthrop at the time of the great 
emigration, when men of wealth and social rank first 
appeared in New England as colonists. It was a 
contrast to the appearance of the Quaker Penn, who 
landed at Newcasde without any parade, 
106 



1686.] A GOVERNOR IN SCARLET AND LACE. lO/ 

Massachusetts did not like the prospect. This 
representative of the new king had power to make 
laws, to control the militia, to tax the colonists, and 
to appoint officers under him. He was not to allow 
the people to print what they wanted to ; and he 
was expected to encourage the Episcopal Church, 
that the citizens generally hated. He could not force 
the people to do as he wished, however. 

There was still a difference of opinion among the 
New-Englanders, but generally they did not wish 
to have governors sent to them from England. 
They could not see the need of them. The colo- 
nists in Massachusetts had managed their own affairs 
very well for a long time, — for two generations, in 
fact, — and it was not at all agreeable to give up to 
others. They were happy to be subjects of the king ; 
indeed, they were proud that they were Englishmen ; 
but they thought that they could govern themselves 
in a way not opposed to the laws of their mother- 
country, without the interference of governors whom 
they were not allowed to choose, and over whom 
they had no power. 

England has had a great many colonies In dif- 
ferent parts of the world, but those In America 



I08 NEEDY AND GREEDY GOVERNORS. 

were the only ones that ever revolted and became 
independent of her. The royal governors were not 
to blame for this fact, though they did not exert 
themselves enough, probably, to make the Ameri- 
cans like their king. They were never popular 
with the people. They were always true to the 
interests of the king, and all of them thought that 
the Americans were, as one of them said, '' a per- 
verse people," both "poor and proud." 

One very careful historian tells us that the gov- 
ernors were needy, and greedy ; that they were good- 
for-nothing courtiers at home, or broken-down officials 
in America, and that they were continually scrambling 
after riches. They were not all so bad as that ; but 
they were not the kind of men to keep peace and 
preserve good feeling between the king and his ^peo- 
ple. Some of the governors lived in the same sort 
of state and surrounded themselves with the same 
sort of ceremony in the wilds of the New World that 
they had been used to at home, where customs had 
been setded for centuries. In this way they cut 
themselves off from the sympathies of the people ; for 
though all the colonists had, as I have said, the same 
pride in their English birthright, they did not like 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF GOVERNMENT. IO9 

to see their rulers, who shone by reflected Hght, make 
themselves so very gay and pompous. 

The three principal colonies, Virginia, Massachu- 
setts, and Maryland, are examples of the different 
forms under which the colonists were governed. 
Maryland was a '' proprietary government " ; that is, 
it was under the power of Lord Baltimore, who had 
been made proprietor of it, when the king gave 
him the charter. He directed in all affairs, though 
he was himself under the general control of the king. 
Virginia was a '' royal province." The king was 
its head, but the organization was not very different 
from that in the proprietary governments. Massa- 
chusetts was at first a '' charter government." That 
is, the affairs were entirely under the control of the 
colonists. This kind of government was the most 
popular ; that of the proprietor the least liked ; but 
that of the royal province was the most uniform. 



CHAPTER XXV. 




ONE OF THE ROYAL GOVERNORS. 

HERE were hosts of royal governors and 
other officers sent out from England, or 
chosen from among those colonists who 
were '' loyal " to the king. One of these was Sir 
William Berkeley, sent to Virginia by Charles the 
First in 1642. He was a stanch supporter of royalty. 
Of course his character is not painted in very bright 
colors by those who were not of the king's party. 
The colony grew under his rule. Rigid laws were 
made against all who did not worship after the forms 
of the Church at home. There were but few such 
persons, though now and then some came from New 
England. It was said long after this time that there 
was little swearing and drunkenness, and less un- 
charitableness and hatred in Virginia than in most 



1650.] INDEPENDENT VIRGINIA. Ill 

Other regions, but it is difficult to compare the 
colonies in this way. 

When Charles the First was executed, Berkeley 
invited his son to come to Virginia and live in peace. 
Oliver Cromwell sent commissioners over to punish 
the colony for such sympathy for the cause that had 
been lost. Berkeley was obliged to give up his 
authority. Virginia did not wish war, and very quietly 
consented to the wishes of Cromwell. The commis- 
sioners agreed that the colonists should still have 
the rights of free-born citizens of England ; should 
choose their own representatives, and determine 
themselves how much they should be taxed. This 
was very well done on both sides. 

The people of Virginia were as independent as 
those of Massachusetts, or any other colony. Crom- 
well did not appoint any governors for them, but 
permitted them to choose their own. All freemen 
were entitled to vote, whether they owned land or 
not ; there was religious freedom ; commerce im- 
proved, and emigrants who came never wished to 
return to England, while natives were proud as they 
are to-day to be ''Virginia born." Land was cheap, 
the climate was pleasant, the soil rich, the fields and 



112 VIRGINIA ARISTOCRACY. [1660. 

woods full of beautiful flowers and birds and game, 
diere was bountiful hospitality, and while it was the 
best poor man's country in the world, it was also 
enjoyed by the rich, who hunted its game and luxu- 
riated in its plenteousness. 

Sir William Berkeley became governor of Virginia 
again, when Charles the Second returned to England 
in 1660. The colony was still aristocratic. It had 
welcomed many members of the royal party after 
the execution of Charles, the late king, and now it 
became more aristocratic than ever. The lines be- 
tween classes were more marked. Many who had 
come over as servants remained servants. There was 
no manufacturing and little commerce. 

Berkeley said that every man instructed his chil- 
dren according to his ability ; and that meant that 
the poor were litde taught, while the rich had all 
the advantages. This was a good plan, perhaps, for 
the rich, but not for the poor, and it was bad for the 
colony in general. It left a class to grow up without 
the education that is needed to make good citizens. 

They did not have printing in Virginia at this early 
day, and that caused the people to get their reading 
matter from England. It made books and papers 



1676.] BACON'S REBELLION. II3 

costly. The poor could not get them. Of course 
if all the reading matter came from England it was 
English, and did not treat American matters in an 
American way. It made the people more and more 
English, and led them to cast their religious views in 
the mold of the Church of England. There were 
slaves in Virginia, which also had a tendency to make 
the people aristocratic. It must be said that there 
were slaves in most of the other colonies also, but 
the classes were not so strongly marked elsewhere. 

When Berkeley came into power again, he did 
a great many things that the people did not like, 
and they became excited. They were ready to rebel 
against him and the king. The Indians gave trouble, 
and the people wished to go to fight them under the 
lead of a brave and eloquent young man named 
Bacon. The governor would not trust Bacon with. 
a command, but as he was supported by many influen- 
tial persons he made a revolt. 

There was a war in Virginia called Bacon's 
rebellion. It left the colony with its capital burned, 
many citizens hanged. Bacon himself dead, and the 
colony crushed and desolate. Berkeley did not live 
long. He was called back to England, where he died. 






CHAPTER XXVI. 



ANDROS ANOTHER ROYAL GOVERNOR. 



HE union of the New England colonies 
lasted from its formation in 1643, ^^ ^^^ 



coming of Sir Edmund Andros, in 1686. 
As it was ended by this event, it is not difficult to 
see that this governor at least must have appeared 
to the colonists in that part of the country as a 
disturber. We shall see how his acts led the colo- 
nies to pull away from the mother-country that they 
loved. 

When the English took New Amsterdam An- 
dros became its governor. He ruled with justice ; 
and though Connecticut, New Jersey, and Dela- 
ware complained that he interfered with them 
and claimed authority over them that he had no 
right to, New York did not find fault with him. 



H 



1684.] ANDROS MAKES AN INDIAN TREATY. I 1 5 

He was careful, however, not to allow the colonists 
to have any part In the direction of public affairs. 
He managed to keep on good terms with the Mo- 
hawk Indians, who were not under the French 
influence, and to make a treaty with the Iroquois, 
who were. This led Louis the Fourteenth to ask 
by what plan he could stop the progress of the 
English. We shall see that a great war grew out 
of this rivalry between Paris and London. 

Andros described New York as bounded on the 
north by the lakes or the French, en the south by 
the sea, on the west by Delaware (we should now 
say Pennsylvania), and on the east by the Connec- 
ticut River, though most of that part, he said, was 
usurped by Connecticut. There was, besides, a tract 
beyond the Kennebec River, called Pemaquid. New 
York was the chief place for trade with Europe, and 
Albany for that with the Indians. 

There were twenty-four towns or villages. Mer- 
chants were few. There were more planters, or 
farmers, as we should say. Servants were much 
wanted, and there were very few' slaves. There were 
all sorts of religions ; the Presbyterians and Inde- 
pendents being the more numerous, though there 



Il6 A REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. [1688. 

were some Jews and one English Episcopal Church. 
There were twenty meeting-houses, about half of 
which were vacant. The poor were cared for, and 
there were no beggars. Ten or fifteen ships traded 
in the colony in a year. Perhaps there were twenty 
thousand colonists. 

In the course of time the Duke of York's daugh- 
ter Mary married William of Orange. The fact was 
important for America. After a while Andros got 
into a . quarrel with the men of Jersey, and was 
recalled to England. While he was there King 
Charles the Second died, and the Duke of York 
became King James. When you read English history 
you will learn that he made one of the worst of kings, 
that his reign was very stormy, and that at last he 
was obliged to run away to France, leaving the gov- 
ernment to his daughter Mary and her husband. 
This was a revolution, and a great one. 

During the short reign of King James, Andros 
was sent back to America. He was to govern New 
England ; but finally all the country from Canada to 
Delaware Bay was put under him, as I have told you. 

King James was determined to rule America just 
as he wished to rule Endand ; but he failed in both 



1687.] ANDROS USES THE OLD SOUTH. II7 



% 



cases. Andres told the New-Englanders that the 
king owned all the land, and that they could not keep 
what they had so long used, unless they now paid 
him for a deed. This was vexatious to the colonists. 
They had owned the land under a grant from King 
Charles the First, and did not understand how 
another king could take their property from them, or 
force them to pay for it. 

One very important way in which Andros gave 
offense was connected with their religious life. He 
decided that he would hold his services in the " Old" 
South meeting-house, as it is now called. He asked 
for the keys, and was told that he could not have 
them. Two days later, however, he ordered the 
sexton to open the door and ring the bell for ser- 
vices. It was Good Friday, which the Puritans did 
not keep holy. There was much excitement in the 
streets on that day and on the following Sunday, 
when the governor went to the South church again. 
He kept on going there, though he let the owners 
of the buildinor ^se it also at different hours. This 
made all the ministers and the churches indignant, 
and probably they could not see that there was any 
good thing in either king or governor. 



Il8 A CHARTER IN AN OAK. [1687. 

Connecticut was a part of the region claimed by 
Andros, and he went there to take away the charter. 
It was in October, 1687. There was a conference at 
Hartford, and the precious document lay on the table 
before the governor from England and the governor 
of Connecticut. It was evening. Suddenly the can- 
dles went out. They were lighted as soon as possi- 
ble ; but there v/ere no matches in those days, and 
perhaps it took some time. When the company 
looked on the table, there was no charter to be seen ! 
Where it had gone no one could or would tell. 
Andros could not get it, at any rate. It is said that 
it was hidden in an old oak that used to stand near 
by. It was known as the Charter Oak. 

Andros had come to Hartford in great state, 
and could not be put off in that way. . He 
declared that the people could no longer go on 
with their free-charter mana^rement of affairs. Thus 
Connecticut looked upon him as a usurper. 

Andros went back to Boston, and began to plan 
to burden the colonists with more taxes. Soon he 
became involved in trouble with the Indians, and 
managed to make the people still more his enemies 
by the way in which he directed operations against 



1689.] BREACH BETWEEN AMERICA AND THE KING. II9 

the savages. Suddenly there came the news that I 
have told you, that King James had been obliged to 
run away. The men of Boston threw Andros Into 
prison, and with thanks to God began to govern 
themselves as they had before. Plymouth, Rhode 
Island, and Connecticut did the same. Not long 
afterward Andros was sent to England by order of 
King William. 1689. 

Doubtless Andros was an oppressor, but he was 
not bloodthirsty. He ruled as his royal master 
wished him to ; he had great authority, but he 
does not appear to have used it harshly. Much 
may be said In his favor ; but to Americans he rep- 
resented a power over the sea that wished to take 
away from them rights and privileges that they 
had enjoyed many years, for which they had suffered 
many trials. Such governors made the breach wider 
that was separating America from England. 

This experience In New England seems to have 
been good for Andros. In 1692 he was sent back to 
govern Virginia, and though he was not a favorite 
with the colonists, he governed them with more care 
for their feelings than he had shown in New Eng- 
land, 



CHAPTER XXVII. 




WITCHES AND THEIR TROUBLES. 

F we look far back in the history of the 
world we shall find that men have long been 
apt to believe that good and bad spirits, or 
some invisible creatures of the air, have power to 
affect men and women by a peculiar fascination. We 
are all inclined to be interested in stories of ghosts 
and fairies, in imaginary beings that, annot be seen, 
or if seen, are very strange or very beautiful. 

Long before there were any laws against witches 
in England, the Pope and other rulers had made 
laws against them which seem frightful to us now. 
In the days of Elizabeth, witchcraft was made a crime ; 
but exactly what witchcraft is, it would have troubled 
the lawmakers to say. I call my litde girl a "witch," 
because she fascinates me ; but a witch in the law 



1648.] THE WITCH DID IT! 121 

was a woman, generally a very hideous one, who 
seemed to have a control over others to their damage. 
She was supposed to be under the influence of 
Satan, — to have sold herself to him. 

A witch is described as an old woman with a 
Wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a squint 
eye, a squeaking voice, or a scolding tongue, who 
usually wore a ragged cloak. Such women were 
thought to be the ones who brought harm on their 
neighbors by the aid of the evil spirits with whom 
they were connected. If a cart was stuck in the 
mud, the witch did it ! If a child cried in a strange 
manner, the witch did it ! If there was a deaf or 
dumb person, — if blindness should come upon one, 
the witches were to blame. 

There were men who called themselves witch- 
finders, who would take such old women as they 
chose to suspect, and pretend to search them for 
the ''witch's mark" as they called it. They would 
shave the poor creatures, drag them through water, 
stab them with long pins, torture them in various 
ways, and then decide whether they were really 
witches. It was horrible. They could find out noth- 
ing, and the poor wretches were at their mercy. 



122 MRS. JONES PUT TO DEATH. [1648. 

No one then doubted that there were such beings 
as witches. Great and good men in England thought 
that they ought to be tortured and put to death. 
Thousands were actually executed in the reign of 
King Charles the Second, under authority of a law of 
parliament. When our forefathers came to America 
they brought the belief in witches with them. 

It was not until years after Boston was settled, 
however, that any persons were punished for witch- 
craft. One Mrs. Jones was put to death there in 
1648, because she was supposed to have communica- 
tion with evil spirits. She was a physician, and a 
good one. She had some angry words with a 
neighbor, and soon after he found some of his cattle 
suffering harm. Mrs. Jones was accused of having 
''bewitched" the cattle. For this she was put to 
death. 

The delusion raged in New England most fiercely 
from 1688 to 1693. Salem was the place most 
disturbed by it. This was a very short time in com- 
parison to the time during which England and other 
countries of Europe were afflicted in the same way. 
The laws against witches were not set aside in 
England until 1736, and a witch was put to death 



1887.] NO FAITH IN GHOSTS AND WITCHES. 1 23 

in Prussia many years after the last execution in 
Massachusetts ; and Prussia is a very enHghtened 
country. 

The story is one that we cannot dwell upon 
with any feeling but horror, and we shall pass over 
it with an expression of thankfulness that men have 
become more enlightened than to put faith in ghosts 
and witches. There are some things about which 
it is well to be ignorant, and this is one of them. 





CHAPTER XXVIII. 

SHALL AMERICA BE FRENCH OR ENGLISH? 

HE question, '' Shall America be French or 
English?" was asked many a time between 
1689 and 1763. In the year last mentioned 
it was forever decided. There was practically one 
long" war from the beginning to the end of the 
period, though there were years of more or less 
peace. Different names were given to the struggle 
at one time and another. You know that when Louis 
the Fourteenth learned that Sir Edmund Andros 
had gained the good-will of the Mohawk Indians, 
he thought it necessary to take measures to keep 
their friendship himself. 

Wherever the French and the Jesuits went they 
were careful to be very intimate with the savages, 
hoping to have them for helpers in case of a war 



[24 



1689.] WALDRON TORTURED FOR HIS TRICK. 1 25 

with the EngHsh settlers. I have shown you how 
New France stretched from Canada and the lakes to 
Florida around the colonies of the English. In all 
parts of the vast territory the French had devoted 
friends amonpf the Indians. 

When James the Second ran away to France, 
Louis the Fourteenth took up his cause, and there 
was a war with England. Louis had before been at 
war with William. This involved the French and 
English in America. New England and New York 
were disturbed for years by inroads of the French 
and their savage allies. The first blood was shed 
at Cocheco, now Dover, New Hampshire. There 
Richard Waldron was tortured and killed because he 
had been guilty, years before, of capturing a large 
number of Indians by a mean trick, and sending them 
to Boston to be sold as slaves. The revenge was 
terrible. This was in 1689. 

This war continued until 1697, 'when it ended 
simply because there was peace in Europe. Mean- 
time Schenectady and Salmon Falls had been burned, 
and many women had been carried away to Canada 
in misery (1690). The troubles were so great, that 
Massachusetts, remembering how the New England 



126 STRUGGLE BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. [1702. 

colonies had come together, asked the others to 
appoint delegates to meet at New York to see if 
measures might not be arranged for united action. 
This was in the same year 1690, after Andros had 
been sent away. Massachusetts was then governing 
herself under the old charter. Plans against Canada 
were made, but no union of the colonists was formed. 

The struggle between France and England was 
renewed in 1702, both in Europe and America. Its 
story is a succession of stealthy marches and sudden 
massacres by the Indians and French in Massachu- 
setts, and on the border regions of the South and 
West. Men who were gathering their crops, children 
at play, mothers busy in their homes, were suddenly 
struck down and killed by a foe that had no mercy 
and no honor. 

Again, when King George the Second was on 
the throne in 1744, when England and France 
were also at war, the same frightful scenes were 
repeated ; but this time there occurred an event 
that is of more than ordinary importance in its in- 
fluence upon the future. The French had made a 
very strong fort on Cape Breton Island, which you 
will see lies near Newfoundland and the Gulf of 



1745.] PEPPERELL TAKES LOUISBURG. \2J 

St. Lawrence. They supposed no army or fleet could 
take it. From this place, which was called Louis- 
burg, the French had sent out ships that had done 
much damage to the Americans. 

A brave man in Massachusetts, named William 
Vaughan, thought that the fort might be taken. He 
spoke to the governor about it, and the governor 
agreed with him. A plan w^as made, and Sir Wil- 
liam Pepperell was sent with a small squadron 
against the strong stone walls. He was successful, 
and came back to Boston with great honor. This 
was in 1745. There were rejoicings in New York 
and in Philadelphia, and even England did not stint 
its praises of the successful general. He was made 
a baronet. The French were surprised ; they did not 
think that the colonists could do such a deed. 

The most important of all these wars was the 
last, called " the French and Indian War." It began 
in 1754, and lasted nine years. There was no war 
between France and England at the time of its be- 
ginning. The difficulty arose from the French claim 
to the region north of the Ohio River. A company 
had been formed by Virginians to occupy a large 
tract there, and their surveyors and explorers had 



128 A CONGRESS AT ALBANY. [1754. 

been interfered with by the French. In the course 
of this war two men appeared who were destined to 
be of great importance in American history. They 
were George Washington and Benjamin Franldin. 

Washington was sent out to survey some of the 
Ohio lands, and afterwards became an officer in the 
army raised to protect the Virginians. Frankhn was 
a person of common-sense, who thought that the 
hopes of the colonies were in union. Washington 
was from Virginia and Franklin from Massachusetts. 

In 1754 there was another congress of delegates 
from the colonies. It was called to consider public 
dangers, and met at Albany. Franklin printed a 
paper at Philadelphia in which he had, just before, 
put a picture of a flag, on which there was a 
snake cut into a number of pieces, each of which 
bore the initials of a portion of the English colo- 
nies. Under it was written, ''Unite or die!" 

He laid before the congress a plan for uniting 
the colonies. He said that if the Indians were able 
to combine for attack and defence, he was sure the 
English colonies might. The plan startled the Eng- 
lish at home when they heard of it ; for it showed 
them how an American government might be formed 



17G3.] FRANCE GIVES UP AMERICA. 1 29 

that would operate without help from them. It was 
not put into operation. The colonies themselves 
were not prepared for a union that involved giving- 
up to a general government any of their rights. 

The army was defeated under General Braddock 
in Virginia at the beginning of the war ; but at last, 
in the autumn of 1759, Quebec fell into the hands 
of the English, and the power of France was forever 
broken on our continent. 

The Indians v^^ere not yet conquered, however. 
There w^as still much fighting with them in the 
lake region, and even when peace came in 1763 
there was left an unfinished war with Pontiac, an 
Indian chieftain of courage and skill. Pontiac was 
met by greater skill than his own, and fled. 

The war was formally closed by a treaty signed 
in Paris in 1763, by wdiich France gave up all 
claim to Canada, and to the territory east of the 
Mississippi. It was settled that the American colo- 
nies should be English and not French. At the 
same time France made a secret transfer to Spain 
of all her claims to the territory w^est of the 
Mississippi. 



3 




CHAPTER XXIX. 

SOME WAYS OF THE COLONISTS. 

HERE were about two million people in the 
English colonies at this time. They were 
divided not quite equally into three portions, 
between the New England, the Middle, and the 
Southern States. Nearly one person in every three 
of the people in the Southern States was an African 
slave. In the Middle States the slaves counted about 
one in every six ; and in New England one in thirty. 
The reason of this was that the northern climate 
was too cold for the negro, and slavery was found 
profitable only in the south. 

Columbus had made slaves of some natives in 
his day; Hawkins had carried many Africans to 
America and Europe for the same purpose ; and it 
was not seldom that captive Indians had been sold, 

130 



1706.] A MIGHTY SMILE OF HEAVEN. 131 

as the Pequods were, to be sent to distant places as 
servants for life. Men nowhere thought that these 
practices were wrong. When Hawkins sailed away to 
Africa to steal negroes, he ordered his men to " Serve 
God dally"; that Is, to have prayers and reading of 
the Bible morning and evening ; and he praised God 
for every advantage he gained over the natives he 
came to carry from their homes. His ship was named 
the " Jesus." 

Cotton Mather, one of the great ministers of 
Boston, had a " very likely slave " given to him In the 
year 1 706, and he wrote about It In his diary, saying 
that It was a '* mighty smile of heaven upon his 
family." Twenty years after this, the Rev. Dr. Prince, 
of the Old South Church In Boston, advertised In a 
newspapers that he had for sale '' a likely negro 
woman " about twenty years old, who was accom- 
plished In all sorts of household work. This makes 
It plain that slavery was not thought wicked, though 
men never liked to associate much with the traders 
who enoracred In the business. The traders took rum 

o o 

from Newport and other places to sell, and bought 
the slaves with the money. 

Yet a feeling slowly arose that all was not right, 



132 THE SELLING OF JOSEPH. [1700. 

and a good judge in Massachusetts wrote a pamphlet 
in 1700 about ''The SelHng of Joseph," because, as 
he said, he felt uneasy about " the trade of fetching 
negroes from Guinea." Twelve years before that a 
Friend or Quaker in Germantown, near Philadelphia, 
drew up a solemn paper against slavery, and it was 
agreed to by the others of his " meeting." This was 
the first time that any body of men in America had 
protested against this trade. In spite of it all, there 
were slaves everywhere, all through the history of our 
country, as far as we have now gone. 

The people were divided into classes in those 
days much more than they are now. There was a 
great deal more of stiffness in company in the 
higher circles, and men and women had not lost the 
customs of regard for rank that they had brought 
with them from the Old World. There were aristo- 
cratic people in the North and South and Middle 
colonies, but the customs were not all alike. 

The patroon on the Hudson had his great man- 
sion, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of acres, his 
many servants and tenants, and lived in luxury and 
state. This formed the most aristocratic class in the 
North, and kept up many of those customs that are 



FEASTING TENANTS IN MANOR-HOUSES. 1 33 

SO interesting when we read of them in history, 
though they could not be allowed now-a-days. 

Men do not like to be kept down, as the tenants 
of the patroons were, no matter how kind the lords 
above them may happen to be, — at least, they do 
not in America. It was delightful to be feasted as 
the tenants were on rent-days, in the manor-houses ; 
to be waited upon by a small army of slaves, and 
to gaze upon the wainscoted walls, the stained-glass 
windows with the family arms painted on them ; and 
perhaps it was not disagreeable to go before the 
great man to sue for justice against some offensive 
neighbor. This may have all been pleasant on one 
side ; but the tenant saw that he was kept down, 
and then his bonds galled him and he struggled to 
cast them off. There was much comfort among the 
colonists in New York, but it was not the comfort 
of the independence that the American learned to 
love. 

In New England there was more equality ; but 
even there the aristocrats had the first place in society, 
and the classes were very marked. The lines were 
closely drawn between '' gentlemen," '' yeomen," or 
farmers, '* merchants," and " mechanics." People 



134 THE NEW ENGLAND ARISTOCRATS. 

were arranged in churches according to dieir position 
on a rank-Hst Hke this, and it was no easy matter 
to seat a congregation in a way that would please 
every man and woman in the town or village. Many 
were the quarrels that rose from " seating the meet- 
ing-house " in the olden time. 

Even students were arranged in Harvard and Yale 
colleges after this fashion. It all seems strange to 
us now, for though we think it right to have a proper 
respect for those who have high character or great 
learning, or who have been chosen to perform im- 
portant public duties, we do not think a man is any 
better because his farm is larger than ours, or because 
his father made a great deal of money. 

There was one feature that showed a difference 
between the people of the North and the South. In 
New England even the aristocrats worked ; but in 
the South the rich planters expected that their slaves 
would do all the labor. They were more like the 
patroons in this respect, or like the aristocrats in 
England. 

There was another great difference between New 
England and Virginia. In New England the inhabi- 
tants were apt to settle in towns or villages ; but in 



OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE IN VIRGINIA. 1 35 

Virginia, the favorite way was to live in the country. 
Thus the rich men in the South were accustomed to 
out-of-door Hfe ; they enjoyed their horses and their 
stock ; they devoted their attention to plantations of 
cotton or rice or tobacco, and not to trade and com- 
merce, as the men of the North did. The men of 
the South were born politicians, and the women were 
admirable in their way. 

For the reason that the New-Englanders settled 
themselves in towns they were stimulated to great 
activity. They could keep up their schools and 
churches more easily than the Virginians could, who 
did not rub together so constantly. They carried 
on their trades and commerce more readily, and their 
colonies improved in many ways more constantly. 
These are important facts to remember. 

There was more variety in the lives and occupa- 
tions of the New-Englanders than in those of the 
other colonists. There were farmers, and fishermen, 
and coopers, and builders of ships ; there were black- 
smiths, and tanners, and rope-makers. There was 
but little manufacturing ; but that line of active work 
was soon to be included. It would take much time 
to tell of all the trades and occupations that could 
be counted in Boston alone in very early times. 



136 MINISTERS AND CHURCHES. 

There was one thing in which most of the colonies 
were ahke. They all were very careful to look out 
for religion, and to see that men kept the Sabbath, 
as they were accustomed to call Sunday. 

In New England the minister was always the chief 
man in the town, and he not only gave the people 
advice that was good for them, but he ruled them 
strictly in many matters. The minister there was 
usually a well-educated and strong man. He told 
the colonists how to make laws, he visited the schools, 
and he watched every man's acts, and gave advice 
on all occasions. On Sunday he preached two long 
sermons, and he spoke from the high pulpit on other 
days also. 

You must have noticed how much attention was 
given in all the colonies to the right ordering of those 
matters that concerned reliofion. All thouorhtful men 
seemed to dread new doctrines, and there was every 
reason why they should be careful. They had so 
many of them suffered at home on account of their 
being unwilling to be ruled by their governments in 
matters of worship, that they had deep feelings on 
the subject. 

Though the colonists gave much attention to these 



GOOD IN DIFFERENCES. 1 37 

things, they did not by any means think aHke. There 
were Friends in many places, Presbyterians in others, 
and CathoHcs, Independents, Eplscopahans, and even 
some members of the new body called Methodists. 

There was not one of these bodies that did not 
stand for some truth, — for something that was good 
for men, and it was well that they came together in 
America. There was conflict between them, but in 
time it led many to have great charity, and not to 
be too sure that they were right and everybody else 
wrong. 




CHAPTER XXX. 




HOW THE COLONISTS LIVED. 

HE two million colonists lived on a rather 
narrow strip of territory along the Atlantic 
coast. After nearly three hundred years 
from the discovery of the New World they had not 
ventured to make towns at any great distance from 
the salt water. If they had ventured, they would 
have been met not only by the Indians, but also by 
the French, who made them fight for every foot that 
they traveled into the interior. 

The first care of the settlers was to put up some 
sort of fort to protect themselves from the savages. 
Then they cut down trees, and with the logs, piled 
one on another, made solid and warm houses. They 
were simple homes. There were usually two rooms, 
with perhaps a wing at the back that could be used 
138 



FOOD AND LODGING. 139 

as a storehouse. There was a great chimney, in 
which huge logs were burned. 

There was no gas nor kerosene, and no matches 
to Hght the candles or fires. Of course the electric 
light was not dreamed of. If anybody had said that 
at a future time cities and villages and houses would 
be made brilliant at night by the sort of light that 
strikes through the heavens during a thunder-storm, 
he would have been heartily laughed at. There were 
dripping candles of tallow, perhaps some of wax in 
the better houses, and there was the pine-knot, or 
the " lightwood," as it is still called, to burn, by which 
many a hard student conned his spelling-book and 
cast his accounts, or read his Bible. 

For the table there were fishes and clams and 
oysters, and the game of the forest. After a time 
there were sheep and cattle to be used in this way, 
but many a family never saw fresh meat. There 
was Indian-corn that could be ground and made into 
many sorts of good breads and cakes. The diet 
was simple, but there was a plenty usually, though 
we have heard there was great scarceness in New 
England at one time. 

There were few clocks and watches among the 



I40 TAKE A SECOND GLASS. 

colonists at first, and they measured the passage of 
time by means of hour-glasses and sun-dials. An 
hour-glass was made in such a way that a quantity 
of sand that it contained would run from one part 
of it to the other in an hour. When the sand had 
passed one way, the glass was turned over and then 
the sand ran back. By means of this instrument 
ministers were able to tell how long they preached, 
and it is said that some preached so long that they 
had to turn the glass a second time ! I have seen a 
curious old book containing an engraving of a min- 
ister turning his glass, and saying to his congregation 
very soberly, " I know you are good fellows; stay 
and take the other glass." The dial showed the time 
of day by means of the shadow of the sun, and of 
course was not useful in cloudy days or at night. 

The American people use more carpets now than 
any other nation ; but in the early days they had 
none, and it is said that at first only the middle of 
the room was covered, and that some who had been 
accustomed to bare floors would carefully walk around 
the edges to avoid stepping on them. The floors 
were covered with white sand, which was swept out 
from time to time, carrying with it all the dust that 



HOW LETTERS WERE CARRIED. I4I 

had accumulated. This sand was sometimes swept 
into swirHng patterns with a broom. Glass was a 
great luxury, and the openings in windows were filled 
with oiled paper, or not filled at all. 

When the colonists wished to visit their neighbors 
in another town or city, they might go in a sail-boat, 
if water lay between them ; but if the route were over 
land, there was no way but to walk, or go on the 
back of a horse. If it were through the woods 
perhaps there might be a rough bridle-path, but 
sometimes the traveler was directed by the marks on 
the trees that he saw as he passed along. It was 
not a bad way to travel in good weather, but in cold 
or rain it was very exposing. Bridges were few, and 
many streams had to be forded, sometimes at con- 
siderable risk. 

If a man in Philadelphia or New York or Boston 
wished to write to his friends in another city, he took 
his letter to a coffee-house, and it was called for by 
some one who was going that way. In 1672 an 
arrangement was made by which letters were carried 
once a month from New York to Boston, and after- 
ward they were sent oftener. Of course roads 
were soon built from one chief town to another, but 



142 LETTERS LEFT TO BE CALLED FOR. 

for many years they were bad, and there were few 
regular conveyances to take passengers from place 
to place. In 1695 letters were sent eight times a 
year from the region of Washington to Philadelphia. 
The post-office was put into order by Benjamin 
Franklin at a later date than we have yet reached. 

People thought that if a mail went out and came 
in once a month between the South and the North 
it was quite convenient. As letters were sent by sea- 
captains as much as possible, many of them passed 
through Boston and other towns on the coast. Thus 
those favored places became centers of news, and the 
people who lived away from the ocean sent to them 
for information and for their letters, which would be 
left with some one to be called for. Sometimes the 
letters were not sent out on regular routes unless a 
considerable number had accumulated. Then they 
were quite irregular. 

It was not until after the conquest of New France 
that public conveyances for passengers were estab- 
lished. One ran from Portsmouth to Boston in two 
days, and others from New York to Boston in four. 
Sleds and ox-carts carried the freight. Carriages had 
but two wheels, and were called chairs, calashes, and 



1754.] . TUTOR FLYNT'S JOURNEY. I43 

chaises. Four wheels would have been difficult to 
manage over the hard roads. A chair, which was a 
sort of gig, had no cover over the seat, but the calash 
and the chaise were covered. I wish I could tell you 
of a journey that an old college tutor named Flynt 
took in' 1754, in a chair, from Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts, to Portsmouth, and back. He was driven by 
a student aged nineteen. The tutor was an old 
bachelor of peculiar tastes and ways, who had taught 
in the college for more than fifty years. We can 
see them driving their pacing nag along the road to 
Lynn, where they ''oated" the horse, got something 
to eat themselves, and where the tutor " had a nip 
of milk-punch," as the young man said. At night they 
"tarried" at Danvers, occupying a room with but one 
bed, the tutor saying to the student, " You will be 
keeping well to your own side ! " As they jogged 
along the next day the student was surprised that his 
venerated passenger " conversed freely and sociably" 
with him, for tutors usually put a great distance be- 
tween themselves and their pupils. As they were 
admiring the beauties of the distant New Hampshire 
hills the day after, the horse stumbled, and the tutor 
was thrown out and bruised, owinor to some disar- 



144 A TRICK OF COLLEGE STUDENTS. 

rangement of the chair. He was cared for at a house 
near by, court-plaster was put on his wounds, and 
both travelers were well supplied with punch, which 
was so "well charged with good old spirit" that the 
tutor was even more "pleasant and sociable" than 
before the accident. Thus they jogged along. Some- 
times the old tutor was lulled to sleep by the easy 
motion of the chair, so slowly did it go, and the 
student watched all the more closely lest the horse 
should stumble again. In the course of the journey 
tutor Flynt said that once when he was hearing his 
college class recite, they stood quite around him. On 
a table at his back there was a keg of wine that he 
had just bought at Boston, and one of the students 
slyly lifted it up and drank from the bung! In a mir- 
ror that hung on the opposite wall the tutor saw the 
operation, but he did not disturb it, merely remarking, 
when the student put the keg down, "You ought to 
have had the manners to have drunk to somebody!" 
This shows us how men traveled in those days, and 
gives a glimpse of their habits. We do not drink 
"good old spirit" so freely now-a-days! A boy carried 
the mail from Philadelphia to New York in saddle- 
bags, and it went up the Hudson on slow sailing 



ELEGANT HOUSES BUILT. I45 

vessels. There was no stage line to Albany for a 
long time. 

As the colonists became rich, and as wealthy 
immigrants came among them, their houses improved 
in elegance. They were made of sawed lumber, of 
bricks, and of stone ; and they contained elegant 
carved cornices and other ornamental work ; while 
the grounds were cultivated with much taste. There 
are a number of houses in New England still that 
were built before the fall of New France. They are 
of so much elegance that architects copy them, add- 
ing conveniences that were not known in those days, 
and they are much admired by all who see them. 




CHAPTER XXXI. 



MORE ABOUT THE WAYS OF THE COLONISTS. 




F we could go back to an old colonial 
town in New England we should see the 
meeting-house and the school-house. The 
church and town-house would be prominent In the 
South. In the middle of a common we should 
probably find a post set in the ground to which per- 
sons who had broken the laws were tied to be 
whipped in the sight of the people. We might 
see a strong upright frame arranged to hold the 
neck and wrists of men or women in such a way 
that they could not be moved. That Is a pillory. 
It was used in England before the colonists came 
to America. 

If a person offended certain laws, he was fastened 
in this frame and kept standing where all the town 
146 



THE PILLORY AND THE STOCKS. I47 

might see him, and hoot at him, if they were dis- 
posed to. 

There w,ould probably be, near by, the stocks, 
in which a prisoner could sit down while he was 
held firmly by his feet, or by both his feet and 
hands, for the world to take notice of his punish- 
ment. Perhaps we might see a woman standing be- 
fore her door wearing on her head a frame made of 
iron furnished with straps that held a gag in 
her mouth ; or she might have a split stick pinch- 
ing her tongue. You would be sure the woman 
was a scold, and that this was her punishment. 

If we could have gone into a meeting-house in 
New England we might have seen a murderer sit- 
ting there while the minister gave him a long ser- 
mon on the wickedness of his life. 

The colonists in New England thought that when 
a man had been guilty of crime he should be made 
to suffer shame for it before the people. Thus 
they believed that others would be hindered from 
doing the same. Their punishments were very hard ; 
they put men to death for offenses that are not 
punished in that way now. Their jails were horri- 
ble, for the world had not yet learned to be kind 



148 SOME WAYS OF THE COLONISTS. 

to criminals ; and to try to lead them to become hon- 
est citizens. Some of those who taught or believed 
religious doctrines that the New-Englanders did not 
think right, — like the Friends, were burned with 
hot irons, the letter H being thus marked on them 
for '' heretic." Roo^ues were thus branded with the 
letter R. 

The people in the Southern and Middle States 
were not so earnest and serious as those of New 
England. In New York they were gladsome and 
gay. The gentlemen in Virginia would have been 
looked upon by the New-Englanders as very far 
gone astray. They lived a rollicking, free-and-easy 
life, indulging in wine and play, much after the 
fashion of some of the higher classes in England, 
as they are painted for us by authors of the time. 
The drinking habits of the best people in New Eng- 
land then would be thought disreputable now. 

One of the first thoughts of die colonists who 
settled New England was to provide for the educa- 
tion of the young, and especially to make sure that 
it should not be necessary to send to England for 
learned ministers. This was accomplished by estab- 
lishing good schools for all the boys of each 



LEARNING AND LITERATURE. 149 

community as soon as possible ; but schools were 
not enough, and so a college was begun at Cam- 
bridge, then Newtown, six years after John Win- 
throp arrived at Boston. It has been doing its 
good work ever since. 

Some of the first settlers were graduates of col- 
leges, and most, if not all, of the ministers were ; but 
they were not what we should now call '' literary." 
They did not study English so much as Latin and 
Greek and Hebrew; they thought little of French, 
and probably looked upon German as the jargon of 
an uncivilized people. 

It is said that there was not a copy of Shakespeare 
in Massachusetts before 1700. The first settlers of 
New England would have thought their time wasted 
if spent in the study of much of the English literature 
then within their reach ; and we must remember that 
the majority of those writers whose works we highly 
prize had not at that time given the world their 
grand prose and noble verse. Young and Gay, Steele 
and Swift, Pope and Prior, were living in 1700, but 
had not then risen to such an eminence as to com- 
mand attention. Goldsmith and Johnson, Gray and 
Robertson, Hume and Gibbon, Cowper and Burns, 



150 THE P^IRST AMERICAN LITERATURE. [1607. 

not to mention a host of other names famUiar to us, 
were yet to be born. 

The early New-Englander was intent on high 
problems of state and religion, and they are not 
"literary" topics. In fact, the real study of our 
literature had hardly begun even thirty years ago. 
All this would be sad, if strong character depended 
upon such studies, delightful as they are. What 
America wanted in those days was not elegance so 
much as strength and force. 

When we trace a great river to its source, we often 
find a small fountain from which trickles a silvery 
thread too slight to give promise of the mighty water 
that rushes into the sea. So when we look for the 
beginnings of our literature, we find it in books that 
bear little likeness to the polished and profound works 
of our own day. American literature began, so the 
historian of that branch of learning says, in Virginia, 
where John Smith wrote some books upon which he 
commenced to work almost as soon as he landed in 
1607. They were not printed in Virginia, but in 
London. There was no press in that colony for many 
years, and very little printing was done on it before 
the Revolutionary war. The rulers, who stood for the 



i 



GETTING THE BOYS READY FOR COLLEGE. 151 

king, were afraid of free printing. In Massachusetts 
a press was set up in Cambridge a year or two after 
Harvard College began. The printer was not per- 
mitted to publish everything that he pleased. All 
had to be examined. At first this was done by the 
president of the college. After a while printing be- 
came perfectly free, as that great old Puritan John 
Milton thought it should be. 

Virginia began our literature, but soon all writ- 
ing of books there stopped. It was not so in New 
England, the only part of the country that can be 
compared with Virginia. There, soon after the union 
of the colonies, it was made a law that all boys 
should go to school. It was seen, as I have hinted, 
that the colleges could not be kept up unless the 
boys were well prepared to enter them. Thus 
it happened that while the Indians were still hov- 
ering about the little settlements, and the wild 
beasts of the forests were howling for their prey, 
the boys were reading Hebrew and Greek and 
Latin, and getting well acquainted with the great 
authors of ancient times. In this way writers were 
trained, and they made many books. 

New England did more than any of the other 



152 COLLEGES AND BOOKS. 

colonies in this matter of education, as you may- 
see by looking at a list of the colleges. There 
were nine founded before the Revolutionary war, 
five of which were out of New England, and two 
in Virginia. Here is the list: Harvard, 1636, 
William and Mary, 1693, Yale, 1701, Princeton, 1746, 
Columbia, 1754, Pennsylvania, 1755, Brown, 1764, 
Dartmouth, 1769, and Hampton-Sidney, 1775. This 
is a goodly number of hard-working institutions 
for a young people to have established. 

There is not a single book among those writ- 
ten before the Revolution that a young person 
would care to read now, though many of them are 
interesting to older students ; but that is not be- 
cause they are equal to those written at the same 
time in England, or to those written there in earlier 
days. It would not be fair to compare early American 
books with the writings of Englishmen in England. 
The writers in each country had ages of cultivation 
behind them, but the Englishmen had none of the 
hard problems of government and war to keep them 
from giving their minds to the refinements of the 
life of letters. Besides this, the children of the scholars 
who first came over did not enjoy the advantages that 



CHILDREN SENT TO ENGLAND. 



153 



their fathers had had in their younger days, and they 
had to attend to building up new communities. The 
children of the wealthy Virginians were often sent 
to England to study, but they were mostly members 
of the Church of England, which the Separatists of 
New England were not. Thus the Americans of the 
second generation were often not equal in cultivation 
to those of the first, and it was many years before 
the educational and social advantages of the New 
World were very good. 




INDEX 



AND EXPLANATIONS OF PRONUNCIATION. 



AcADiE (a-ca-dee), a name for the 

French possessions, 7. 
Adventurers, the Dorchester, settle 

at Cape Ann, 23. 
Adolphus, Gustavus, makes a plan 

for a colony, 43. 
Albany, a fort built at, 34. 
Alexander, William, receives a 

grant, 40. 
American literature, 149. 
Americans grow independent, 93. 
Amstel, New, a name for New 

Sweden, 45. 
Andros, Edmund, sent to govern 

New England, 106; Governor of 

New York, 114; Governor of 

Virginia, 119; uses the South 

meeting-house in Boston, 117. 
Annapolis, first French settlement 

at, 9. 
Aristocrats in the North and South, 

132. 
Avalon (av'-a-lon), a region in 

Newfoundland, 54. 



Bacon's rebellion in Virginia, 113. 

Baltimore, Calvert, Lord, 56. 

Baptists badly treated, 83. 

Berkeley, William, sent to Virginia, 
no. 

Blackstone, Rev. Mr., an early set- 
tler at Boston, 30. 

Books, the first American, 149. 

Boston, first settled, 30 ; named, 31 ; 
Mrs. Hutchinson in, 59 ; sends 
emigrants westward, 61 ; Friends 
in, 82; Charter commissioners in, 
82; Andros in, 114; has trouble 
about witches, 122; slavery in, 130. 

Botolph, St. (bot'-olf), a saint after 
whom Boston was named, 31. 

Cambridge, England, meeting of 

Puritans at, 26. 
Cambridge (Mass.), people of, 

move West, 61. 
Calvert, George, obtains a grant, 

54, 55- 
Carpets not used in early times, 

138, 140. 

155 



156 



INDEX. 



Carolina, the aristocratic govern- 
ment of, 73. 

Carriages, early sorts of, 143. 

Cartier (kar'-tee-a), mentioned, 8. 

Catholics and Protestants, 8. 

Champlain (sham-plane'), father of 
New France, 9, 10, "jd. 

Chair, a sort of conveyance, 143. 

Charles the First, charter given by, 
94 ; has trouble with the Puritans, 
22. 

Charles the Second invited to Vir- 
ginia, III. 

Charter Oak, the, 118. 

Charter, the, of Massachusetts, 24, 
27, 94; transferred to America, 
28; trouble about, 102; taken 
away, 105. 

Christina (kris-tee'-na), queen of 
Sweden, 43. 

Church and state separated, 50. 

Clocks and watches, 140. 

Coining money in Massachusetts, 
96. 

College joke. A, 144. 

Colleges founded by Jesuits, 11. 

Colleges, the early, 152. 

Colonies, different governments of, 
109. 

Colonies, the, of England in Amer- 
ica, 107. 

Congress at Albany in 1754, 127. 

Connecticut has trouble about its 
charter, 118; settlements in, 62. 

Connecticut and New Haven 
united, 103. 

Covenant, the, of the Pilgrims, 18. 



Davenport, John, at New Haven, 

Democracy, form of government 

defined, 21. 
Dorchester Adventurers, the, settle 

at Cape Ann, 23. 
Drinking habits in the colonial 

days, 144, 147. 
Dutch, the, appear on the Hudson 

river, 33 ; high character of, 36. 
Dutch names in New York, 35. 
Dwellings in the colonial times, 

145. 

Education in colonial times, 147; 

in New England, 150. 
Emigrants from Massachusetts go 

to the valley of the Connecticut, 

63. 

Emigration, the "great," 29. 

Endicott, John, settles in New Eng- 
land, 24. 

English, the, take possession of 
New York, 38. 

Episcopalians badly treated, 83. 

Exeter founded, 59. 

Famine, in Boston, 47. 
Federal government (Latin, fcvdiis^ 
a league), the first in America, 

71- 

Ferryland, a region in Newfound- 
land, 54. 

Flynt, tutor at Harvard college 
takes a journey, 143. 

Fox, George, the Friend, 82, 90. 

France at war with England, 125; 



INDEX. 



57 



takes possession of the North- 
west, ']^. 

Franldin, Benjamin, appears, 128. 

French and Indian war, the, 126. 

French, the, jealous of the EngHsh 
in America, 1 1 5. 

Friends, the, in the Jerseys, 88; 
laws against, in Boston, 82 ; 
burned with hot irons, 147. 

Gorges, Ferdinando (gor'-jez), be- 
gins settlements in Maine, 41. 

Governors, the royal, traits of, 107, 
108, no. 

Guiana (ghe-ah-nah), a region be- 
tween the Orinoco and the Ama- 
zon, in South America, 15. 

Hartford founded, 63. 

Harvard College begun, 148. 

Hawkins brings slaves to America, 
129. 

Higginson, Francis, settles at Salem, 
25. 

Holland a temporary home of the 
Separatists, 13; war between her 
and England, 102. 

Hour-glass, the, 139. 

Hudson, Henry, explores the Hud- 
son river region, 33. 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Ann, preaches to 
women in Boston, 58; is ban- 
ished, 58. 

Indian wars, 125. 
Indians, the, and the Pilgrims, 20; 
destroy settlements, 36 ; trouble 



the colonists, 40 ; Penn's treaty 
with, 91 ; made friends of by the 
French, 124. 

Ireland sends money to New Eng- 
land, 86. ^ 

Irving, Washington, History of 
New York, 36. 

James the First has trouble with 
his people, 22. 

James the Second becomes king, 
116. 

Jamestown, founding of, 13. 

Jersey, New, settlement of, 88. 

Jerseys, the, meaning of the name, 
88. 

Jesuits, order of the, 8, 10. 

Joliet (zho'-le-a), the Jesuit ex- 
plorer, 79. 

Journey, A, in the colonial times, 
143- 

King, the, of England jealous of 
Americans, 93 ; " divine right " 
of, 22. 

Laconia, a vague region, 42. 
Land bought of the Indians by 

Lord Baltimore, 57. 
Letters, how carried, 141. 
Louisburg taken, 127. 
Louisiana taken possession of by 

the French, 79. 
Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, 8. 
Lutzen (loot'-zen), battle of, 43. 

Mails, how carried, 141. 



158 



INDEX. 



Maine, settlements in, 41 ; war 

with the Indians in, 85. 
Manhattan Island bought by the 

Dutch, 34. 
Marquette (mahr-kef), the ex- 
plorer, 79. 
Maryland founded by the Calverts, 

5^ ; why so called, 56. 
Massachusetts Bay, Governor and 

Company of, 24, 27. 
Massachusetts in opposition to the 

king, Id ; charter of, taken away, 

105. 
Massasoit (mas'-sas-soit), the Indian 

chief, 84. 
Minister, the, in New England, 

136. 
Mississippi River, the, discovered, 

79- 
Money coined in Massachusetts, 

96. 
Mount Desert, settlement at, 41. 

Naumkeag (nawm-keg), the first 
name of Salem, 24. 

New Amsterdam, the early name 
of New York, 34. 

New England explored by Cham- 
plain, 10; named by John Smith, 
16; Plymouth namedj 20 ; emi- 
grants to, 94; society, 133; busi- 
ness in, 135. 

Newfoundland (nu'-fund-land), 54. 

New France, or Canada, 52. 

New Hampshire, settlements in, 
41 ; dispute about boundary, 60. 

New Haven, founding of, 68 ; laws 



of, 68- troubled by the Dutch, 

70. 
New York, Dutch customs at, 35; 

condition of, 115; comfort among 

the colonists in, 132. 
Nova Scotia, granted to Alexander, 

41. 

Parliament (par-li-ment) interferes 

with the Americans, 95. 
Patent, a document conveying a 

right or privilege, 15. 
Patroons, the, on the Hudson, 131 ; 

name defined, 34. 
Penn, William, interested in the 

Jerseys, 88, 89. 
Pennsylvania, settlement of, 91. 
Pequods, the, exterminated, 65. 
Philadelphia begun, 92. 
Philip, the Indian of Mount Hope, 

and the war with him, 84. 
Pilgrims, the, in Holland, 13 ; at 

Cape Cod, 16; at Plymouth, 18; 

sufferings of, 19; encounter the 

Indians, 19, 20; their government, 

21 ; their religious opinions, 47. 
Plantations, founding of, 7. 
Planters in the South, 134. 
Pontiac, war with, 128. 
Portsmouth settled, 60. 
Powder, first given to the Indians, 

33- 
Printing in Virginia, 112. 
Printing-press, the first, 150. 
Proprietary governments, 109. 
Protestantism protested aganist by 

Fox, 82, 90. 



I 



INDEX. 



159 



Providence founded, 51. 

Puritans, the, opposed by James the 
First, 22 ; some leave the church 
of England, 12, 23 ; buy land at 
Cape Ann, 23 ; send emigrants to 
Salem, 24 ; renounce the worship 
of the church of England, 25 ; 
send a colony under John Win- 
throp, 27, 29; have trouble with 
Roger Williams, 47 ; with Mrs. 
Hutchinson, 58; begin to move 
West, 62; views of, 47; treat- 
ment of, in England, 99. 

Quakers. See Friends. 
Quebec, founded, 10; taken from 

the French, 129. 
Quinnipiack, name of the site of 

New Haven, 6^. 

Randolph, a hungry adventurer, 

104. 
Rank, in the different colonies, 133, 

134- 
Regicides (rej'-i-cTdes), the, 97; 

escape to New Haven, 100. 
Religion, attention to, in the colo- 
nies, 15, 136; troubles about, in 

New York, 37. 
Revolution, the, of 1688, in England, 

116. 
Rum first given to the Indians, 

33. 

Salem disturbed by witchcraft, 

122. 
Salem, settlement of, 24. 



Sault St. Marie (so-sante-ma-ree'), 

a gathering of Indians at, yy. 
Schoolhouse, the New England, 

145. 
Schools in Virginia, 112; and in 

Massachusetts, 135. 
Scolds, how punished, 146. 
Separatists, the, 12; the, treatment 

of in England, 99. 
Settlements in America, the, 52. 
Settlers, the first care of, 137. 
Shawmut, early name of Boston, 

30. 
Slavery in the different colonies, 

129; opposition to, 131. 
Smith, John, the first American 

author, 149. 
Spirits, habits of drinking in old 

times, 144. 
Standish, Miles, captain of the 

Plymouth forces, 20. 
State and church separated, 50. 
Stocks, the, 146. 

Stuyvesant, Peter (sty'-ve-sant), gov- 
ernor of New Amsterdam, 37. 
Sunday, observance of, 136. 
Sweden, plans for a colony, 42. 
Swedes, the, conquered by the 
Dutch, 38, 44. 

Taxes imposed by Andros, 118. 
Titles to land, views of Williams 

about, 49. 
Trade, laws about, give trouble, 95. 
Travel in the colonies, 141. 
Trimountain (Latin fres, three), a 

name of Boston, 30. 



i6o 



INDEX. 



Tinicum Island (tin'-e-cum), set- 
tled, 44. 

Union of the New England colo- 
nies, 70, 89; of all the colonies 
proposed, 126, 127. 

Usselinx, Willem, plans for a colony 
of Swedes, 43. 

Vane, Sir Henry, comes to Massa- 
chusetts, 57. 

Villages, the New England, 134. 

Virginia company, the, 1 5. 

Virginia, independence of, in. 

Virginians send their sons to Eng- 
land to be educated, 152; their 
way of life, 134. 

Wampum (wom'-pum), the Indian 
money, 97. 



Washington, George, appears, 128. 

Watches and clocks, 139. 

Westward movement of population, 
62, 63. 

Whipping-post, the, 145. 

Williams, Roger, arrives at Boston, 
48; expresses his views, 48; is 
banished, 49; founds Providence, 

50- 

Wilmington, settlement of, 45. 

Winthrop, John, first governor of 
Massachusetts, 27 ; leaves Eng- 
land, 29; reaches lioston, 30. 

Winthrop, John, junior, goes to 
Connecticut, 61. 

Wisconsin explored, 79. 

Witches, laws against, 120, 122. 

York, the duke of, makes grants on 
the Delaware, ^y. 




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